Starting Your Own Yahoo Store by Brenda Michell - HTML preview

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YAHOO! STORE MERCHANT SOLUTIONS

At the time of this writing, Yahoo! Store was the web host for 500 more ecommerce businesses than the competition. That says a lot since there are thousands of companies out there all trying to compete for your business.

When you invest in the Standard or the Professional plans offered by Yahoo! Store, you really get to take advantage of some amazing products and services. Check out some of the reasons why this ecommerce solution is the best bet.

STORE DESIGN BENEFITS

One of the first things you will encounter when it comes to Yahoo! Store is the actual development of your store. You need to get your store online.

This process is excellent for providing you with an easy method. Later, we will take a look at some of the benefits of hiring a professional to help you with the design of your store, but before that, take a look at some of the plan features here.

• • You are able to design a professional looking website. That speaks volumes for your business. To do this, you will be able to use a Yahoo! Store wizard tool. The store design tool is quite simply a step by step tool that takes you through the process one step at a time.
  • In addition, each of the pages you create for your store are going to be search engine friendly. This means that the pages are set up in such a way to allow search engines to easily work through the site, page by page, and to rank it. Search engine optimization helps your website to be found by those searching for it or searching for similar websites.
  • Let’s say that you are interested in hiring someone else to help with the design. On the other hand, you may be interested in using other tools from other design programs. That is no problem since Yahoo! Store supports third party tools on the site.

Now that you have used the tool, you are able to get your storefront up. Now what?

GETTING YOUR PRODUCT CATALOG UP

The next of the benefits that comes from using Yahoo! Store is the product catalog. Yes, there are other companies out there that offer product catalogs and some may be a better option for you, but most businesses will do just fine with the use of Yahoo! Store.

Take a look at what you can expect. These are some of the benefits of the product catalog:

• • You are able to manage up to 50,000 products on your site for sale. That is a sizable amount and most businesses will fit well within their range, even medium sized businesses.
  • To get the products on the site, you will use a step by step wizard. Like the tool you used to set up the site, this tool takes over the process and makes it incredibly easy to use.
  • For those who already have an existing storefront online, you can easily upload an existing product database to the system. That makes the process easy to benefit from, too.

The product catalog is like a virtual version of the a paper catalog. It inventories all of the products that you have for sale on your site. This catalog gives your website some organization as well as structure. When someone visits the site and is looking for a specific product, they can easily find it because your catalog has organized it properly.

SHOPPING CART AND CHECKOUT

Next, consider what happens when someone visits your websites and browses through the catalog. They see something they would like to buy and, what do they do? In the early days of the Internet and shopping online, people would simply call the company over the telephone and request the product they saw online. However, today, things are different.

Now, a shopping cart is used. A shopping cart is similar to the type you might find in a traditional grocery store. As your customer works through the store, he or she will find items they wish to purchase. They then add the item to their shopping cart. At this point, the item is tagged for their purchase. However, a shopping cart allows the customer to keep shopping. They can buy more than just one item.

Once they are done shopping at your site, they might have a few items in the shopping cart to purchase. That is when the checkout process occurs. During this process, the customer is able to verify their information, mailing address, shipping methods and payment options and the software handles the transaction for them. You do not have to swipe a credit card nor figure out shipping charges. This is done for you.

With the Yahoo! Store, you are able to do this using a variety of the features found with the Yahoo! Store products. Here are some of the key benefits you may have with your Yahoo! Store plan:

• • You will have single or multiple page checkout options.
  • You are able to set up your own fields during the ordering process, which simplifies the process for your end. It also makes it easy for your customers to get through the checkout process.
  • The system automatically calculates the shipping charges for you, based on the type of shipping you offer and the selection of the customer. It also handles sales tax where it is applicable.
  • You can customize the layout of the pages. This allows you to personalize your business to make it stellar, or just the way that you want it to be.

There are some other nice features about the Yahoo! Store set up. For example, did you know that most people who are going to buy a product online will usually come back to the store two or three times (sometimes more) before they actually make the purchase? This is especially true about higher priced products such as electronics. One of the features of the Yahoo! Store is that you are able to set up the shopping cart to save the contents of the cart for up to two weeks after the customer places the item into it. Even if they close out their web browser, it will remember them when they come back.

MARKETING AND PROMOTION

Now that you have your website up and running, you cannot just sit back and wait for the magic to happen. Rather, you need to get started on the next step in the process: marketing. Most small business owners struggle with the concept of marketing because it seems so daunting. However, when you utilize the features found in Yahoo! Store, the process really does get easier.

Later in this book, we will provide some more information about marketing and how you can incorporate it into your plan, but first, let's mention a bit more about what Yahoo! Store can offer:

• • It helps you with search engine ranking.
  • It provides you with automatic submissions to search engines such as Yahoo! and Google.
  • It helps you with local listing services
  • It gives you some awesome discounts to use for marketing needs.

But, that is not all. It is not just about positioning yourself in the web that will help you to find people who will buy from you. Rather, you also need to stand out from the crowd. In other words, you want to make sure that your store has the means to do well. For this, Yahoo! Store offers some excellent benefits:

• • They can help you to create and use coupons on the site.
  • They will help you with discounts for pricing for particular timeframes or events.
  • They can help you to offer gift certificates.
  • They will help you with volume discounts you may wish to use.

There are several other options, too. The bottom line is that you will attract people to your Yahoo! Store using the tools that the company has available to you. Many of these tools are proven to be the most effective for nearly all who use them across the web, not just with Yahoo!

Shopping.

WILL THIS WORK FOR YOU?

Many people ask this simple but all-important question. Is this what I need to do well online? Here is a checklist of the basics you need to start making money online.

1. You need to have your website up and functioning properly.
2. You need all of your products to be properly displayed on the website so that they are enticing for others to view.
3. You need the products you offer to be items that people want or items that you can somehow convince them they want (such as marketing services.)
4. You need to have a way for people to pick up items and purchase them, such as a shopping cart.
5. You need proper payment solutions so that customers can safely make payment to you.
6. You need to be able to market your business so that customers can find you online.
7. You need to entice them with special offers.
8. You need to be able to analyze and manage your online site and ecommerce.

The good news is that Yahoo! Store does all of this for you. You do not need to worry about having the right tools and resources from two, three or more companies, which is what happens when you try to set up a store like this through a new website.

As a merchant solution, this tool is highly effective, but do not forget that you have to do your part, too. By that, we mean:

• • You need to have a professionally designed website and you need to invest in the services of a professional to design it if you cannot do so yourself.
  • You have to actively participate in your business. These are not self-serve online businesses.
  • You need to treat your online customers with just as much respect and attention as you do those who might walk into your local shop.

By taking the time to do this, you will garner not just one sale from a person who visits your Yahoo! Store, but you will also be able to get repeat sales from that customer over and over again. That makes it highly valuable and it makes repeat customers a profitable focus of your business.

Once you make the decision to use Yahoo! Store, the next logical step is to set it up and to start using it. However, it is also important to do this the right way.