$50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

BkraM,

We're going to be posting a video and some sample screenshots. Also if you have an active Beta 3 anywhere, we can set it up so you can test it without incurring any charges.

[gjt]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

The scenario I am seeing, and this is certainly true for some of my clients, is that this new model would hit the smaller businesses the hardest...and in one of two ways.

Either their Miva licensing costs will double or there will be minor/major annoyances and inconveniences. This would be especially true if they are using Miva for order processing which, as we all know, is time consuming and will eat up much of the time of an admin seat. And annoyances cost money. So, for smaller merchants, this is a big deal.

For larger businesses with, to pick a number, $500,000+ in revenue an extra seat is no big deal. If you own a business like this and don't want to have to change platforms (like Magento Go customers) -- definitely an expensive proposition -- paying for extra seats might actually save you money in the long run.

But for the little guy this is not such an easy pill to swallow.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Makes sense... forgive me if this is an easy question, but how do you view orders from front end? I don't see this anywhere... this would save us 5 seats if we could do it...

This isn't something that is "built in" but its something fairly easily to add...however, you'd need to make sure you protect this access and that the data was pretty sanitary.

[Mark Hood]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

There are several solutions that could highly impact the speed at which they can work as well as making it only need one seat. Assuming the computers are on a network together shipworks is an amazing internal communication and order processing tool while being very cost effective.

Without shipworks we would be absolutely lost. Once you have it set up how you want everything can be set automatically. We use it with Worldship for UPS and with USPS Endicia. With Worldship once the order is packed you input the order # into your shipping computer and out comes your label. USPS is done in the shipworks software. The order status and emails can also be sent automatically after processing. Make up your own internal order statuses if you have any issues with an order and you can move them to different folders. Returns still need to be done in the miva admin.

I certainly wouldn't say it's the easiest thing in the world to get setup but they do have a 30 day free trial.

[JFancett]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Personally I don't have a huge problem with the change, per se. Prices go up. Our customer service software Kayako has exploded in cost and it's still cheaper than the alternatives. We pay some outside services that augment the base Miva platform 5-10x more than we pay for Miva. We can afford this change because most of our work is in StoneEdge and our revenues support it. Do I, as the owner, love this money coming out of my pocket. Absolutely not. I like to keep money in my own economy versus handing it to vendors as a general rule. But if Miva needs more revenues and this is the path they choose, all I can say is it could have been worse. This is manageable for 100% of their customers. Will business processes need to change to avoid the new seat fees? Sure. But Miva is not forcing anyone to spend extra money. They've left the platform pricing attainable for all current merchants.

That said, there are some things that I think Miva should consider. 3rd party tools should never get locked out because it really starts to break some workflows if "too many people are logged in" and StoneEdge throws some cryptic error that the CSR has no idea what it means. Either whitelist these tools or bill them as a percentage of time they log in which may in fact be 100% of license. We download orders all day long and StoneEdge is updating status, etc all day long. However, I'm sure other tools that don't talk back to Miva or smaller shops may only need their 3rd party tool to log in 10 minutes a day. I can see how we may need a full admin license for StoneEdge, but smaller shops may not. But even if it has to be billed later, these tools should never fail to log in because of a license issue.

Next, we don't fall into the micro merchant category but I have some family members that are doing less than $100k/year so I have some experience. If Miva truly doesn't want to leave that portion of the market behind maybe they implement a 1% royalty for micro merchants for up to 3 users or something with a $49/month minimum billing. As they grow they opt into the per seat model.

Lastly, on the developer issue. Maybe developers have the option to buy a super developer license that a store owner can give control of their store to ala Google Adwords. Developers pay a couple hundred dollars month for unlimited access to any Miva store they are granted access to. But outside of that, I can't not defend Miva saying a license is needed for the developer. We develop in house. Why would we as in-house developers be required to have a license to work in the store if a third-party could do it for free? A last option if Miva were to think about whitelisting developers is to not allow "operational" use of the store. Just changes to the templates, etc. But that's a new layer of work to put into the platform and would ultimately need to be funded from somewhere.

For the record, I didn't get this email so maybe we're not logging into Miva enough to trigger the fee. I'd be interested to know that. Bottom line is this is the new normal so we budget for it. I'll take today's Miva at higher prices then what the platform was when we started on it seven years ago. It's sad to hear that some people may be priced out, but it's like Pamela said. If you're $10k annual sales merchant, it's a hobby not a business. Hobbies should be able to be replatformed with a stock template in less than a day or two. If they can't, as a business owner you need to find a way to increase revenues. Miva has a business to run.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Lastly, on the developer issue. Maybe developers have the option to buy a super developer license that a store owner can give control of their store to ala Google Adwords. Developers pay a couple hundred dollars month for unlimited access to any Miva store they are granted access to.

So I want to jump in on this specific thought. Developers reading this, please don't jump to conclusions about what we'd charge for this idea (because frankly we don't know yet, but it would be less than the $50/mo/store).

This is a highly likely outcome, a Certified Developer Account that technologically bypasses the simultaneous usage count.

In addition, we're looking at splitting up the difference between roving seats and dedicated seats. So for example you could have a dedicated seat that's set for "StoneEdge" as an example, so that it always has a seat and can never be locked out.

[jpatrickm]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

So I want to jump in on this specific thought. Developers reading this, please don't jump to conclusions about what we'd charge for this idea (because frankly we don't know yet, but it would be less than the $50/mo/store).

This is a highly likely outcome, a Certified Developer Account that technologically bypasses the simultaneous usage count.

First, thanks for the honest and open discussion here. Brennan brought this thread to my attention but before that I was stumbling around in the dark a bit trying to keep clients in the loop on this change. Rick articulating Miva's position and the hard choices needed to survive in the marketplace is appreciated.

In reading through this entire thread, my thought was exactly a solution along the lines of a "super user" admin that us developers could purchase that would allow us single access across any Miva site (obviously pre-authorized by owners). Much like Basecamp or other single-login services do, a user seat is actually assigned to a real person and that login goes with them. I would much prefer to tell my clients, after the dust settles on this new pricing issue, that they don't need to pay for my individual seat license. That I will take care of my own "super user" license as the cost of being my own business. I imagine clients would see this as an added value for working with me as a certified Miva developer who has their own credentials. This would also save everyone money across the board as I don't need to ask all my clients to dish out $50 on each store just for me to help them. I'd probably even be willing to pay more than $50 a month if I had unlimited developer access that covers all my client stores. Maybe you could even bundle some other developer benefits to sweeten the relationship :)

Anyway, thanks again for the open discussion. My clients are anxiously awaiting the impact of this new structure.

Thanks
Joe

[Krsullivan]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Hello Rick,

The $50 per seat is fine, we understand and will require several. But I have a question, you made a comment about multiple tabs from a single browser. What if happens when we use multiple (IE & Chrome) browsers together with multiple tabs.

Example, I will generate feeds with one browser and then use the other browsers to do other stuff in the admin. It save me a lot of time, as some of those feeds as you know take a while to generate all the variants. Currently we use same login for both browsers at the same time and it works. I do this often and saves me a lot of time. Will we need two seats just for the procedure I outlined.

also, since I deleted that email. When do we need to sign up for multiple active admin seats?

Thanks

Kevin
AutomotiveWorkwear.com
SullivanUniforms.com

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

i may be speaking out of turn, but yes, two browsers require TWO seats. (There is now way they can tell its a browser on the same machine.) But, why two browsers? Just use two windows (or tabs) with ONE browser.

[Krsullivan]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Hey Bruce,

Thanks for the info, I think it should be per user or machine and not how many browsers I have open, but either way is fine. Its the cost of doing business. The Miva platform needs to grow and expand to make sure our websites have the latest technology (all bells & whistles to improve the customer experience) because it affects all our bottom lines. We have a large staff, so we will need several.

Why two browsers. I'm probably the last person on the planet that still uses IE. LOL. Anyway, I use weiland's template feed for a several large shopping feeds. If I run the feed module, and open another tab in IE and do whatever in the admin, it seems like 25% of the time that the feed times out at around 80% done. I don't have this problem with chrome, but I prefer IE. So I run the feeds in Chrome, and use IE for my admin adjustments. Could be my computer, but it works.

thanks

Kevin

AutomotiveWorkwear.com
SullivanUniforms.com

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Kevin,

Seriously, take the time to learn Chrome. Its a MUCH better browser for anything web development wise.

As far as the "one person/one license" I'm sure if Miva had a way to do this, they would. But technically, there is no way of knowing if You and IE, and You and Chrome...are just YOU and not YOU and Someone Else.

[Rick Wilson]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Kevin,

Bruce is correct, if there was such thing as a "Computer Session", instead of a "Browser Session", we'd do that for sure. But that's simply impossible today.

As for process, there might be a way to automate this with Cron or other tools. When it comes to API users, all of them together only count as 1 user, no matter how many there are, or when they run.

[dachenbach]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Test Post
(I've tried replying to this thread a couple times over the last week or so with no success...)
My comment is "in moderation" or my account is unavailable.

[lesliekirk]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

Test Post
(I've tried replying to this thread a couple times over the last week or so with no success...)
My comment is "in moderation" or my account is unavailable.

Where else have you posted to? My apologizes, this is the first of your posts that I have seen.

Leslie

[dachenbach]

Re: $50 per additional simultaneous Administrative User

I believe this is my first post. I've been a reader for a few years. I've only tried to post to this thread. I'm surprised my test post went through. I'll try to immediately follow-up with my original on-topic reply in which case you we delete these last couple posts.

When I try to view my profile I'm told I don't have sufficient access to view the page. I get the same message if I try and view my Subscriptions. Not sure if that's related or not.