> So, my second question: Is anyone here familiar with Miva Merchant, and how it compares to osCommerce?
>
> And finally, since I'm going to be the one expected to do all of this website maintenance stuff if we do switch to Dreamhost and the shopping cart maintenance regardless, what kind of compensation would it be reasonable to ask for, given that this would only be a small part of my job but that it requires a lot more technical knowledge and skill than I was hired to have?
>
> Thanks for any help. :-}
>
> ~Mina "sometimes it's no fun being the only one at my company with a clue" moon

Miva Merchant looks like it gives you everything you need, but you'll wind up buying modules to get the flexability you'll want and have to suffer through an interface that makes Lotus Notes look like a Mac.

Don't think with Miva, you'll just stop there. You'll also need to install OpenUI if you don't want the basic look and feel Miva provides. Even then, you'll find that you won't get the layout you were really shooting for. Finding out where to insert your own styles, layouts, and changes -- heck, finding out what you can change -- can be difficult.

This isn't to say Miva is a bad program. Yes, it has a horrible interface, it has it's own way of laying out stores, and it almost requires you to buy addtional modules to get the store to look how you wish. On the other hand, once you realize what's going on in the interfaces and once you have the modules you need and once you've tweaked the output, Miva has many good things going for it: inventory management, upsale items, and general shopping cart goodness.

It took us well over 16 man hours to get Miva up and running for a site. At $65 an hour, that's over the $1000 set-up fee your freelancer is charging. He'll be taking an existing shopping cart product and configuring it to work with your site -- not just making sure it runs properly, but also doing several code changes to make it look like the store part of your site actually is part of your site and not some other site.

Compensation-wise, I can't answer that without knowing your past work experience, your current job duties, your future job duties, and the prevailing wage for your job level is.

-FP