By Paul Lang, Editor, Sell It!
August 7th, 1999

See Also   How to Choose a Shopping Cart   StoreSense Pro   Click and Build   eCongo Free Commerce   EasyCart   FreeMerchant   Merchant Planet   Merchant Manager   Yahoo! Store   MerchandiZer

Overall
We took our first look at this product back in June '98, just shortly after Yahoo! had completed their purchase of Viaweb for $49 million and re-christened it Yahoo! Store. At that time Yahoo! Store had only a 1000 merchants, but in the intervening 14 months this has grown enormously to 6000 merchants.

Yahoo! Store is not by any means the lowest price product on the market, so how has it achieved this phenomenal growth rate?

Unlike most of its competitors, Yahoo! Store is not targeted at one particular segment of on-line merchants. Instead it has the flexibility built in to allow inexperienced users to quickly build good stores, whilst giving more advanced users the capability to build a store to their exact specifications.

This flexibility, coupled with an excellent reports and statistics package, makes Yahoo! Store one of the best e-commerce solutions available today.

The major downside for many merchants is that Yahoo! still does not allow non-US merchants to sign up for its Store product.

Set Up
Much of the publicity surrounding Yahoo! Store centres on its claim to allow stores to be created very quickly. These claims are by and large true, as a simple store can be created in a short time using nothing but a Web browser.

However, one of the great features of Yahoo! Store is its flexibility. On one hand, less experienced users can employ its point-and-click simplicity to create good-looking stores quickly. On the other hand, more advanced users can incorporate HTML code within their text or use the built in scripting language - RTML - to create custom layouts. This flexibility was recently enhanced even further when Yahoo! added a forms-based interface that allows merchants to easily generate RTML documents.

Whatever approach is chosen, the first step is for the merchant to enter some general information about the store, such as the store name and contact information. The next step is the definition of the overall appearance and structure of the store.

There is a choice of 15 pre-defined templates or looks to choose from, although more advanced users can use RTML to define their own. The selection of a look determines the overall appearance of the store, including colours and fonts. In addition to defining the look, users can also define the page layout, for example the number of columns and their alignment.

The Yahoo! Store employs a simple structure made up of Sections and Items. Sections are created by defining their names and descriptions in a simple HTML form. Display text and buttons are then automatically generated. Items can then be added to a section, either through another HTML form or by uploading information from an existing database in CSV format.

The addition of images to the store is easy. Clicking on a link after an item has been created opens an explorer-type window. This allows merchants to browse their local hard drives and select an image for uploading. Unlike some of its competitors, Yahoo! Store does not require a plug-in to be installed in order to support image transfer. However, the downside of this is that there is no preview pane available. More advanced users can chose to zip all their images in to a single file and then upload it to the store where it is then automatically unzipped.

Yahoo! Store is very search engine friendly. All pages are stored as static HTML, which allows them to be successfully spidered and indexed. Meta tags are automatically added to each page during the generation process and all pages can be automatically submitted to the major search engines.

There are some useful tools built in to each store. For example, there is a mailing list manager that allows the use of multiple independent mailing lists for newsletters and promotions. Also included is a fairly sophisticated link tracker tool that supports the implementation of affiliate programs.

The level of support provided is good, consisting of a test drive that incorporates a guided tour, backed up by a comprehensive on-line user manual and context sensitive help.

The pricing model is simple. Stores with up to 50 items cost $100 per month whilst stores with between 51 and 1000 items cost $300 month. Larger stores are available at cost of $300 for the first 1000 items plus $100 for each additional 1000 items. There is no start up fee or minimum contract period. Optional real-time credit card processing is provided by First Data Merchant Services at no extra cost.

Order processing
The Yahoo! Store's order processing system is based on a virtual shopping cart, with all transactions being secured by SSL.

Although there is a clear expectation that the majority of orders will be made on-line and paid with by credit card, the system provides sufficient flexibility to cope with other ordering and payment methods. Twelve payment methods are predefined including major credit cards, “COD”, “Bill Me” and “Purchase Order”. Merchants can also define their own payment methods and add explanatory text to custom fields on the order form.

The tools for specifying shipping costs and tax levels are the most sophisticated I have seen. There are thirteen ship methods predefined (including UPS and FedEx tables) and merchants can add more if they desire. Costs for each ship method are defined either through a wizard or through a series of forms. Global shipping is particularly well catered for as shipping costs can be set for each individual country, and merchants can also specify which countries they will accept orders from.

Tax levels are set using a simple wizard that asks what states a merchant wishes to collect taxes in and then automatically generates a tax table.

Merchants can choose to have orders either e-mailed or faxed to them, or they can access them online via a secure Web server. High volume sites can download their orders as a database file or have them fed to their own server in real-time.

Administration
Like other aspects of the Yahoo! Store, the administration tools are comprehensive and flexible.

The store is administered from a central Management page that allows all aspects of the store to be edited and also provides access to the statistics and reports package.

When editing the store, users can choose between a simple, regular or advanced interface. Changing any aspect of the store from layout through prices is straightforward. Merchants have the ability to fully view all changes before activating them in the live store.

Yahoo Store! supports both sale pricing and quantity discounts, and will recalculate unit price and subtotal on the fly as quantities change. It also supports cross-selling: when a customer orders one item, the ordering system can suggest related items they might want to buy as well.

Finally, the statistics and reporting package is the most sophisticated I have seen, either bundled with any other commerce server or available as a standalone package. It includes detailed information on sales per page, the most common paths taken through the store, referring pages and search engine keywords.

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Links
Yahoo! Store		http://store.yahoo.com