The largest advantage of this is from the Yahoo search engine. If you put the word computer into the search engine you will get a large return of companies that sell computers. This is no different than what Google would return to you. However the big difference is that Yahoo will showcase any storefront similar with the keyword that you are requesting at the top of the list. If you look at Yahoo’s search engine you will notice that when you get the keyword matches, the storefronts are always on top and in a shaded portion. This gets your attention immediately. Why does Yahoo do this for you? Well because when you sell something through your storefront, Yahoo takes a little piece of the pie.
I personally like Yahoo storefronts as another income scenario. I think its best to bundle it as a marketing plan. For example plan on a certain number of auctions on Ebay, a certain number of Yahoo auctions, a Yahoo storefront, an Ebay storefront and finally a regular web page with shopping cart.
What They Do for You
Yahoo gives you the opportunity to have the whole package through their website. You can set up a storefront for about $50 dollars a month and they give you all the additional tools you need to get it up and running. They also give you 30 days to develop the storefront and tweak it before officially launching it. Keep in mind they do offer merchant accounts so that you can take credit card payments. They do lack choices in this area and I prefer to go with my own shopping cart company. Yahoo’s merchant account provider charges around $22 per month for their service.
Keep this in mind, once you sign up with the merchant account they immediately start deducting the monthly charge, whether you’re open for business or not. However the advantages of having Yahoo on your side outweigh the disadvantages. Having your site pop up in the first few pages of a search engine inquiry is quite nice. They also sell other services that can augment your website.
Yahoo also offers web hosting and domain registration as additional services. I did not find their web hosting prices all that terrific and I find that there are usually better deals to be had if you look around a bit. However if you like to keep things simple and all under one roof, it is a good way to go.
I highly recommend getting a bunch of auctions under your belt before venturing into the online store. Keep this in mind, when you run an auction it’s either running or it’s not. An online storefront is always operating. You have to keep things in mind like if your going to be on vacation and how you will process orders. Make sure you develop a way of checking your orders so that you don’t miss any opportunities. The automatic checkout process usually notifies you that someone has made a purchase from your website. However if you forgot to update your storefront and don’t have the inventory to provide it’s not just the customer that gets upset, it’s Yahoo too. They want their piece of the pie and its important to them that you maintain a certain integrity.
This is Yahoo’s web hosting and storefront program http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting/?p=1
They have their own custom site builder software, or you can use whatever you like. If you choose Yahoo’s, here is the link. It is also available on their site. http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/
Yahoo’s small business home page:
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/index.php
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