When Miva Merchant v1.x was released, it marked the first mainstream shopping cart with a fully developed module API. This allowed 3rd party developers to create addon modules, to enhance the functionality of the base product. These included products for Coupons, Gift Certificates, Electronic Software Distribution (ESD), Affiliate Programs, Pricing Discounts, Inventory Control, License Key Distribution, etc. The first releases of many of these products were impressive, but still basic.

As March 2000 came around, Miva Merchant v2.x was released, including a major overhaul of the module API, and the shopping cart as a whole. System and Store Utility modules were introduced, as well as Wizards and Log modules. The APIs for each specific module type was advanced forward, providing even more capabilities and removing the need (in almost all cases) to modify the core shopping cart scripts. This release, combined with the first OpenUI release, started the explosion of 3rd party modules we see today.

Today, Miva Merchant has the largest 3rd party module base of any shopping cart package, with over 25 primary module vendors offering well over 575 modules and services to enhance your storefront and your customer's shopping experience. All 100% of these modules are compatible with the OpenUI Look & Feel, and we are proud to say that almost all of these modules rely on the OpenUI Look & Feel module to hook into your store.