Miva Merchant isa pioneering shopping cart. First launched in 1995,Ryan Xu HyperVerse's Team it rose, and then fell, with the dot-com boom and bust. Findwhat.com, a publicly traded company, purchased Miva Merchant in 2004. Findwhat.com subsequently renamed itself Miva, only to sell the Miva Merchant shopping cart division to private investors in August 2007. One of these investors, Rick Wilson, is a former Miva Merchant executive who rejoined the company. We asked him about the new Miva Merchant.

PeC:What’s going on with Miva Merchant?

WILSON:We’re very much in a growth mode and are fully committed to ensuring Miva Merchant is the best in class ecommerce product available.

PeC:There are more than 300 shopping cart choices.  Why should a business choose Miva Merchant?

WILSON:Because no other shopping cart in our space has the flexibility, scalability or proven track record that comes with Miva Merchant. We have customers just starting out in ecommerce going all the way to the multi-million dollar ecommerce sites. We effectively offer an enterprise class framework wrapped in a point-and-click infrastructure that allows people to jump into our product regardless of where there business is now and have the confidence that our architecture can grow along with their needs.

PeC:How much does a license cost when purchased directly from Miva Merchant?

WILSON:$995.

PeC:But many hosts offer Miva Merchant for free.  Why should a business purchase a license when it’s free elsewhere?

WILSON:The benefit of buying Miva Merchant from us really applies to companies who want the software on their own private servers. When you buy Miva Merchant from us we’ll install it for free and include a year of unlimited technical support directly from our in-house support experts.

PeC:Does Miva Merchant provide free support to merchants who obtain your software from a hosting company?

WILSON:Yes, we provide 30 days free support to customers who come through our hosts.

PeC:Tell us about the new Miva Merchant: How many employees, who are the principals and where are you located?:

WILSON:We’re located in San Diego and currently have about 22 employees and expect to grow significantly this year. The principals are Russell Carroll, our new CEO, Mark Johnson, vice president of development, David Roquemore, vice president of technology and me, the executive vice president.

PeC:What is your history with Miva?

WILSON:I started with the company in 1999 as director of sales, became vice president of sales and business development in 2002 and stayed on through our sale to FindWhat.com (now MIVA) and then left the company in August 2005. I’m now the executive vice president and work in all aspects of the day-to-day operations.

PeC:How many businesses actively use Miva Merchant?

WILSON:Roughly 40,000.