Migrate Miva to Shopify May 01, 2023at 18:57 pm By: James Byrne After Dark Grafx Moving From Miva to Shopify? There are many things to consider when migrating your website from Miva to Shopify. Before you begin this process, it is best to contact After Dark Grafx via Chat (bottom right of this website), via our Contact Form – click here or via Phone Toll Free (888) 578-8300 or if in San Diego (619) 702-7377. This will save you in both time and money and the 30 minute consultation is FREE! STEP 1: TAKE AN INVENTORY OF YOUR MIVA STORE BEFORE MIGRATION: You will want to take an inventory of what functionality is currently in place within your existing Miva Merchant store and see if this same type of functionality is available within Shopify. In some cases, you can change or alter the functionality to best suit your needs but in some cases, you will either need to add a paid or free app from the Shopify App Store or contact a developer (like After Dark Grafx wink! wink!). To perform the upgrade or add advanced custom coding that Shopify or the theme that you choose does not offer. STEP 2: PAYMENT METHODS What payment methods do you currently accept and what is connected to your existing website? Authorize.net? Stripe? Paypal? Pay On Account? Etc. Then see if these systems are they available in Shopify. STEP 3: SHIPPING METHODS What shipping methods you are currently using and are they available in Shopify. Example: You may be using Worldship with Freight for your large and heavy products. You may need a paid app within Shopify to perform the same tasks and functionality. Shopify, out of the box, offers USPS shipping. If you would like to add UPS, FEDEX, DHL or other shipping carriers it is best to contact Shopify support to have them add the ability to your current plan. See more below. STEP 4: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT SHOPIFY BEFORE MOVING (PROS, CONS, LIMITATIONS & BENEFITS) Shopify allows you to utilize their own built-in merchant account, therefore bypassing your existing merchant account. If you wish to use your merchant account with Shopify, there is an added fee percentage per order so it’s best to just use their built-in merchant account and keep it separate from your retail or physical locations to keep costs down. Shopify currently has an attribute limit. This means if you wanted to have a T-shirt company and you had size, color and material it will be fine but if you were to offer additional items like inseam or brand type in addition to these three options, then you would need an app or some customization in order to allow this functionality. If you have a lot of products that have attributes/variations drop downs that are connected to those products, you will definitely want to reach out and see if there is an app available to help with migrating all of your options, otherwise you will have to do this manually. Shopify Benefits Shopify allows you to get started with an online store quickly. You can sign up for a free trial, build your store, add your payments and add shipping and launch your website in a matter of days. (ie: Smaller websites of course). You don’t need your own merchant account and shipping is built in if you are using USPS. There are free and paid apps that allow you to click and install easily to add major custom functions that would cost a lot to be added if it were a custom solution. STEP 5: VIEW EXISTING SHOPIFY THEMES Shopify comes with a few free themes, however, these free themes may not be what you are looking for along the lines of design for your new website. See https://themes.shopify.com. The other option is to use a paid theme or reach out to a designer like After Dark Grafx™, to create a custom design for your website. STEP 6: VIEW EXISTING APPS Miva merchant has a lot of functionality built into it plus modules that are added to it to extend its’ functionality. Shopify, in the same regard, has an App Store that allows app providers to offer functionality that may emulate or provide the same functionality for a fee. OPTIONAL BUT RECOMMENDED: CONTACT A SHOPIFY DEVELOPER (We are Shopify Experts) After Dark Grafx™ is a Shopify Expert. Since Shopify’s inception, we have been developing and creating themes, apps, custom code as well as designing for Shopify. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us for a free consultation. OPTIONAL: USING A THIRD PARTY MIGRATION SERVICE PROS & CONS There are many third-party services that can help with migration from Miva Merchant to Shopify. These companies such as Cart2Cart, and others will copy existing data from your Miva website and import it into your Shopify website. However, these migration services rarely migrate all data, you have to double check everything that was migrated and test it yourself, then contact the company over and over again until the data is moved correctly. STEP 7: EXPORTING AND IMPORTING DATA You will want to make a full backup of your database of your existing website and files before doing anything along the lines of migration from Miva Merchant to Shopify make sure that you export your customers, products, categories, orders, shipments and data needed. You should log into the backend of Miva and copy the settings for your shipping and payments and try to keep in mind any customer functionality or code that was built in for your website. Please note that all data will not be migrated from the old system so you will want to make a checklist of exactly what you need from the old website i.e. orders, payment data, etc. and, in some cases, you may not be able to transfer the payment transaction data because it is with another system. Migrating Customers: Customers will need to create new passwords for their account on Shopify. Their old passwords and transaction data will not be migrated. Migrating Orders: You can migrate orders but not payment transaction data STEP 8: INTEGRATING DESIGN CHANGES In some cases, you may want the same exact design and building it into Shopify will take a little effort. It will not be an exact replica, but will emulate it closely. Otherwise, it is best to get a new website design that converts on Shopify. STEP 9: CODE FUNCTIONALITY CHANGES You should go through your existing website as a customer and go through the checkout process. Write down what is happening along the way. What’s happening on the product page, the category page, the checkout page and finally the invoice page. Are you getting a follow up email with an offer. Do you have an email system with follow ups or abandon carts? You may have up sells or other functionality that you forgot about. STEP 10: SETTING UP THIRD PARTY SHIPPING AND THE COSTS INVOLVED In some cases, adding UPS, or FedEx or additional shipping carrier is easy as contacting Shopify and having him add a small fee to your monthly plan. Otherwise they may make you upgrade to the next plan, which is usually more expensive than the small fee to add this ability to your existing plan. Simply contact Shopify support to have this fee, added and tell them that you are interested in adding additional shipping options. STEP 11: SETTING UP PAYMENT GATEWAYS AND THE COSTS Shopify comes with its own built-in payment system, meaning that they accept credit cards on your behalf and will release the funds into your account. Once they process the credit cards and take their fee. You can, however, utilize your own merchant account, but this will incur an additional percentage cost on top of the fee that is charged through Shopify so if you were paying 2.49% before you’ll end up paying 3.49% or more for your transactions so it is best to use Shopify’s built in merchant account system. STEP 12: USING REDIRECTS SO YOU DO NOT LOSE “*SEO JUICE” Before pointing your domain name over to Shopify, it is best to find out exactly what URLs are listed on the search engines, and if you are interested in keeping your “SEO juice” for your existing listing pages, this means that your old pages will point to your new pages so you will want to create your redirects to the new pages within Shopify. This should be done before finally pointing your domain name to Shopify and launching your website. STEP 13: POINTING YOUR DOMAIN NAME Once everything is migrated and the website is for working on a test or temporary URL and you are happy with the way the new website is working, you should perform one last export of customers and any other data that has changed since the last time you did an export. Once this has been imported into Shopify and you’re happy with everything, you should then point your domain to Shopify. We recommend that you keep your existing hosting in place for a few weeks to make sure that the new website is working for you. Otherwise you can easily switch back to the old server and website in the event that there are issues with the new store. STEP 14: LAUNCHING YOUR NEW STORE Everything is ready. Your new website is working perfectly. All of the functionality is in place. Your customers have been imported, your products have been imported you have tested out the payment processing and shipping and all of the emails in regards to the order process and you are ready to launch your website. Simply point two records to Shopify. One is an A record and the other a CNAME record. See how to connect your website to Shopify manually. STEP 15: UPDATING THE SITE MAP WITH GOOGLE, BING, OTHER Your website is now live on Shopify but now we need to tell the search engines that your new site map has been updated with your new address and website, your sitemap address has changed and you are going to want to create a Google search console account as well as a bin web master account and another of webmaster accounts in order to remit your site maps so that your new pages get indexed faster and you do not lose any of your wonderful search engine rankings. Sitemaps would include: (change YOUR-DOMAIN-NAME-HERE with your website domain name) https://YOUR-DOMAIN-NAME-HERE/sitemap.xml https://YOUR-DOMAIN-NAME-HERE/sitemap_products_1.xml https://YOUR-DOMAIN-NAME-HERE/sitemap_pages_1.xml https://YOUR-DOMAIN-NAME-HERE/sitemap_collections_1.xml and if you have a blog https://YOUR-DOMAIN-NAME-HERE/sitemap_blogs_1.xml This is just a basic list of what needs to be done before, during and after a migration from Miva Merchant Shopping Cart to the Shopify Platform. Contact us today click here for a FREE, 30 MINUTE, NO OBLIGATION consultation. Toll Free (888) 578-8300 Local: (619) 702-7377 Shopify’s post about Migrating to Shopify Click Here After Dark Tip: Make a Backup of your entire site and database before starting or making any changes or migrations. In your Miva Control Panel (not admin.mvc) you can export the database and all files from within Miva’s ecosystem. Their my.miva.com control panel allows you to login to the server and export the database and files OR just contact Miva Tech Support and they will do this for you. *SEO JUICE = Your current SEO standings or what links you currently have within the search engines. You should also take into consideration the age of your Miva website. Was it developed recently or years ago. Sometimes, performing a migration will not grab all of the data correctly. Utilizing an online utility to migrate your data, in most cases, does not grab all of the data you need because there is no “face-to-face” or human interaction analyzing what your site actually needs. Over the years, as you utilize Miva for your eCommerce website, you have probably added modules and custom code to make the website perform in a certain fashion needed for your company. Some of these modules or functionality will need to be re-added to your Shopify store in the form of paid or free apps plus custom coding. So, what do you do? Call After Dark Grafx for a FREE, No Obligation Migration Consultation and Cost Analysis. This way, you can understand what exactly you need and how your website will be affected by the move. It is best to spin up a test store, put it onto a paid plan and integrate and add the apps you need before moving the entire website. Note: All existing customers will have to RECREATE their passwords. You can send them out an invite one-by-one (Shopify Plus allows for mass invites) otherwise, you can use your email system like Mail Chimp, Constant Contact or other to send emails to your existing customers notifying them that you are moving to a new system and they will have to recreate their password on your website. Have a Rewards System in place? We should talk. What about Email? We should talk. Have other special coding or integrations that you may have forgotten about? We should talk. It is always best to keep your Miva Merchant account live as you transition away for the first few weeks to make sure everything is running efficiently. There are a multitude of other things to consider when migrating pertaining to orders, customers, categories and so forth so you should do yourself a favor and contact After Dark Grafx for a FREE Miva to Shopify Migration Consultation!
Mistralsoap.com New Shopify Website Launched December 11, 2018at 18:37 pm By: James Byrne After Dark Grafx Mistralsoap.com new Shopify Website Launched with this Holiday season version just in time for the holidays. Be sure to visit mistralsoap.com or mistralmen.com for excellent deals on soaps and beauty products. We are proud to have them as a part of the After Dark Grafx family. From developing their first Miva site over 10 years ago to their new redesign and Shopify Development, Mistral has placed it’s confidence in After Dark Grafx once again. Since 1994, Mistral has crafted exceptional quality soaps and beauty products. Their exquisite fragrances and superior formulations celebrate the body while nourishing and soothing the skin. With the lush landscape of Provence as their laboratory, they invite you to experience the transformative power of Mistral. NOTE: FREE SHIPPING ON ORDERS OVER $58.00 “After Dark Grafx has been an integral part of our online growth. We know that we are in good hands and do not have to worry about our website. We enlisted James and his company over 10 years ago to create our first eCommerce website with Miva Merchant. We have grown and have now moved on to Shopify to better suite our needs in the marketplace. James and his team integrated and added and recommended the proper Shopify Apps that allow us to be successful today. We know that After Dark Grafx is just an email or phone call away, after all – They work After Dark, So you don’t have to!” – MISTRAL, LLC.
Ship Station Not Syncing with Miva after Two Factor Update November 09, 2018at 18:10 pm By: James Byrne After Dark Grafx Some users may experience issues with their Ship Station account not syncing to Miva after the latest 9.12 update with Two-Factor Authentication. If you run into this, there are articles on Ship Station’s Website (Orders Not Importing to Miva) but you will actually have to contact Miva Support to have them make an exception to the user that is connecting to Miva in order to bypass the Two Factor Authentication and/or email login from device. I attempted all other means before contacting support like: a) Reinstalling Ship Station Module b) Making the user an admin then reducing the user back to just basic auth user c) Updated Miva Engine d) Restarted Server, Apache, Etc. Save yourself some time and just contact Miva Support. Hope this helps someone else. If you need help with this, you may also contact us and we can take care of this for you on as well at our hourly rates. *Logos are trademarks of specified entities
How to Add Two Factor Authentication to Miva for Admin: The Fastest and Easiest Solution October 26, 2018at 19:41 pm By: James Byrne After Dark Grafx Get Ready for Miva Merchant upgrade to 9.12 With the new release of Miva 9.12 they will now require two factor authentication. This should be done before the release in the next few weeks. Even though you have an email account for all admins that sends a verification code to login. You will now be prompted for an additional login method via Two Factor Authentication. In order to enable two factor authorization on Miva, you will need to: A) Login to Miva and Select the Admin User B) Put a checkbox next to the Miva Admin Account C) Select the TWO FACTOR AUTHENTICATION tab at the top of the accounts D) Select one of the two factor methods below. Two Factor authorization works like this. You login to your account with your username and password. You are then presented with another screen to enter a code, token or authorization method in order to access the account. Explanation of Two Factor Options: (Descriptions below taken from within the Miva Admin) 1) Time-Based One-Time Password (TOTP) ((select this one to make it easier and the one we explain below) Description: A Time-Based One-Time Password (TOTP) is a temporary passcode generated by an algorithm. With the current time used as one of its factors in calculation, the algorithm can ensure that each generated passcode is unique. In order to use this form of two-factor authentication, you will need to download an application (usually on a mobile device, but also available on most desktop operating systems) that will generate a code and display it when you are signing in to your admin account. The process for signing in to the administrative interface is as follows: Sign in to the administrative interface with your normal username and password credentials When prompted, enter the One-Time Password generated via your TOTP application (e.g. Google Authenticator) 2) YubiCloud + Yubico OTP (means you need a physical device plugged into your computer) Description Yubico OTP uses pre-configured YubiKeys to authenticate via the YubiCloud Authentication service. This method of two-factor authentication requires the use of a YubiKey that supports YubiCloud Authentication during sign in. A few benefits of using YubiCloud include requiring a device (the YubiKey) to be present during login and unique, secure 128-bit AES encrypted one-time passwords with counters to identify and prevent replay attacks. The process for signing in to the administrative interface is as follows: Sign in to the administrative interface with your normal username and password credentials When prompted, insert your YubiKey into your computer’s USB port Press the button on your YubiKey This is a stronger, more secure solution. 3) WebAuthn/U2F Description WebAuthn is a W3C standard that will allow for multiple forms of single-sign-on and two-factor authentication. Miva’s implementation of WebAuthn used U2F Authentication, which is two-factor only, and will require the use of a FIDO/U2F certified device. Browser support for WebAuthn is currently very limited, and will require you to log in using only browsers that currently support the standard. The process for signing in to the administrative interface is as follows: Sign in to the administrative interface with your normal username and password credentials When prompted, provide your two-factor authentication credentials via the supported U2F device ———————————————————– – Read the Full Miva Article Here on How To Set Up Two Factor Authentication on Miva Merchant RECOMMENDED SOLUTION TO GET STARTED FAST! How to Add Two Factor Authentication to Miva for Admin Users: The Fastest and Easiest Solution I am going to cover How To Add Google Authenticator to Google Chrome Browser to allow you to login via TOTP Time-Based One-Time Password (TOTP) A) Login to Miva and Select the Admin User B) Put a checkbox next to the Miva account admin that you would like to add and select the two factor authentication tab at the top C) Select Time-Based One-Time Password (TOTP) In the Miva Documentation above for this setup it references the Google Authenticator but doesn’t explain how to use it. Here is one method below. You can search for apps that run on your phone or mobile devices as well. You will need to run this extension each time you login to Miva. OTP (Google Authenticator) Setup and Configuration Time-based One Time Password or TOTP is the most popular method of Two-Factor Authentication. This involves using an app such as Google Authenticator (BELOW) to generate a unique 6 digit password each time you login. Requirements: To use TOTP you’ll need an app such as Google Authenticator, Authy or a browser plugin to handle to TOTP flow. Steps to setup in Miva Edit User and Select Manage Two-Factor Authentication Choose Time-Based One-Time Password from the Drop down On the next screen, scan the QR code or enter in the text string below the QR code into your Google Authenticator (or similar) app (HOW TO BELOW). Once done, enter in the 6 digit code generated from the App into Miva and click enable. COPY THE CODE BELOW THE QR CODE ABOVE for the next section. HOW TO INSTALL GOOGLE AUTHENTICATOR IN CHROME DESKTOP 1) Using Google Chrome, open a new tab or window and go to: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gauth-authenticator/ilgcnhelpchnceeipipijaljkblbcobl?hl=en 2) Download and Install the Extension 3) Click on the EXTENSION icon (should be in the top of your browser as a little G and it will send you to the extension website to enter your token) 4) Click on the PENCIL top right of the browser 5) Click on the ADD button – bottom left 6) Enter a user or website you want as the name to be referenced for the account access 7) Enter the token from the Miva Admin Page with the QR code that you copied above. 7) It will generate a code for you to enter into your Miva Admin below the QR CODE and token that is displayed. You could always use BACKUP TOKENS later to login but it is better habit to use the GAuthenticator Extension. Go back to the Miva Admin and enter this code below the token 8) Select Enable 9) You will now see a list of BACKUP CODES, download them and store them in safe place. I would print them and delete them from the computer to be safe. 10) Select NEXT and CONGRATULATIONS! You are now setup with two-factor authentication! Now you have to do this for each of the admins on your site. Sign In Instructions Sign in to the administrative interface with your normal username and password credentials When prompted, enter the One-Time Password generated via your TOTP application (e.g. Google Authenticator) You will need to select the Chrome Extension GAuthenticator and click on the new code that it creates and enter that for the two factor code to work. If you are unsure of how to do this or it sounds too technical, please contact us . We offer this service via a screen share to help set this up on your browser at our hourly rate. Yes, you will need to use Google Chrome to login to your admin and to use the extension mentioned above each time you login. Using a backup code To use a backup code, click the “Use Backup Token” link below the Two-Factor screen during the login process. Here you can enter in your one time use code: Each backup token is one time use so once it has been used it can never be used again. Note: There is no way to bulk generate backup codes. If you need more than the initial 10, you would need to disable Two-Factor for that user and then re-enable it which would generate you a new set of 10 codes.
Prevent Hackers from Accessing your Miva Admin September 04, 2018at 17:58 pm By: James Byrne After Dark Grafx The first time a new Miva admin logs in to a Miva account from a new browser, a 6-digit verification code will be sent to the email address on file. This added layer of security will alert you via email if someone is attempting to login to Miva using your credentials. Browser verification is a new security feature available in Miva 9.10. It adds an additional layer of protection to prevent someone logging into your Miva administrative interface with stolen login credentials. Across the industry, online fraud and credit card theft continues to rise. Attacks to steal login credentials include phishing, malware and malicious activity. Browser verification add an important layer of protection preventing someone who is not you from using your credentials to log in to your Miva admin. Each time you login to the Miva admin via a new device or browser you’ll be required to enter in a verification code which is emailed to the email associated with your user. Once entered, a cookie will be set on that browser which by default last 1 year. You’ll be required to do this process for each browser you use to login to Miva with (Chrome, FireFox, etc). For example if you used your home computer to login into Miva to check orders, the very first time you login you’ll need to verify your browser by entering in the authentication code which is emailed to you. This process also has the benefit of notifying you if someone is trying to use your login credentials as you’re receive an email notifying of their IP address. If this login attempt was not made by you, you’ll then want to change you admin password as someone other then you is attempting to use your credentials to login to the Miva admin. Editor Note: Although this may initially seem as an inconvenience, the internet as a whole would be better served if all apps and websites embraced this process to maintain security and peace of mind. READ FULL ARTICLE HERE