Hello,

Newbie here. Thanks in advance for your patience and time in answering these questions. I've answered as much as I can from reading, but still had some unanswered questions.

Background: I recently decided to open a e-commerce web site for my photography business. Got a hosting deal with OLM, and used the MIVA software which came free with the package. Set up a Linkpoint merchant account.

20 hours and a few more headaches later I'm convinced that MIVA cannot be customized to do the set-up that I would like. Via lots of work-arounds it can "kind of" do x and "sort-of do" y, but it just isn't working out.

So, having learned this lesson, I wanted to give some examples of what I'd like to do and ask "Can Zen do this?"

Assuming most of the answers are yes then I'll need to hire someone to do it, but that's the next bridge.


1. For an individual product page, I really like the look and option selection feel of this - (not mine, just an example)

http://www.mangelsen.com/store/Limit...h___2879?Args=

First the customer selects a print size. Then (and only after this) does another set of radio buttons pop up to offer a framing choice. And then only if "framed" is chosen does the next choice appear. With each choice the "Price" updates to the correct amount on the page.

Each of my prints will have quite a few choices like this (4-5 sizes each with it's own price) and each can be framed - each of these having it's own price.

What I like is the cleanness of the look - all the "options" only appear when they are needed.


2. I would like to be able to have on the product page a small thumb linking to another product. For example I sell cards of many of my images. On the "Home" page the options might be "Brids", "Wildlife", "Landscapes", "Fine Art Cards". While looking at a product page in the "Wildlife" section I'd like to have a small thumb that woud like to the product page for that same image in the "Fine Art Card" section.

Many product pages would need this link, but not all, so it needs to be optional for a page.

3. Off of the main page, for example "Landscapes" the next page need to take the viewer to a set of photographs. Not a "product list" with numbers and codes, but a clean simple, black background with photographs on it and make one or two descriptive words below the picture.

With Miva, one big hurdle is that it has a bunch of other stuff it "needs" to display whenever you are listing products. A photography site needs to be clean and elegant.

Then clicking one of these thumbs would take the viewer to a product page, as described above.

4. Linkpoint integration - seems as though this works, as I've read quite a few posts where folks were working out bugs with this.

5. I guess besides the above, the other "bottom line" is, assuming I hire someone competent, can I make a page appear "exactly" as I want it? For example the Miva software always wanted the product's "code" on the page under the price field. I didn't. I lost.

I'm sure there are a bunch of other questions I haven't considered, but this will really be helpful.

thanks,

Steve