Introduction
If you’ve spent any time watching infomercials on TV or have an email account, you most likely ran across someone or some company trying to sell you on the idea of starting an online business. All you had to do was buy their Internet money-making package. It was yours for the asking. They were asking $79.95, paid out in three equal installments. You might also have heard the testimonials and how you can make money selling just about anything you could think of on the Internet.
And doing this while you slept!
If you haven’t found out by now, making money by opening a business on the Internet is not easy. To paraphrase the famous twentieth century actor Edmund Gween’s deathbed quote, “Dying is easy—eCommerce is hard.” Looking at the littered landscape of failed eCommerce sites after the dotcom bust, one would believe that to make a small fortune in eCommerce, one would have to start with a large one.
If you want to set up your own online business or extend the one you have, and have dreams of becoming the next Amazon, there’s both good news and bad news in the eCommerce world of today.
First the bad news.
Why is it so difficult to build a successful online business? Well, there are a variety of reasons and they come in all sizes—small, medium, and large. There’s the small cost of maintaining a full-blown eCommerce site. You need a web server—that is, someplace to host your eCommerce website. Then you have the medium cost of receiving and sending emails, taking orders online, processing credit cards, and not to mention the high cost of a host of software applications and the programmers to use them to build and maintain your online storefront. And all this reaches deep into your pocket even before you ship your first order or provide your first service. And you better have deep pockets because establishing and maintaining an online storefront can run into the thousands of dollars.
Now, the good news.
There is a light at the end of this gloomy tunnel of expenses. And it has a name: Yahoo! store. It’s been a mere 10 years since the appearance of the first eCommerce site on the Net. Since then, a lot of digital river has run under the eCommerce bridge, but one thing is certain. eCommerce is here to stay. One case in point is the Yahoo! stores. All through the eCommerce turbulence and dot-com bust, the Yahoo! network of stores has grown and is growing stronger.
If you are an individual who wishes to dip his or her toe into the eCommerce river, and want to set up a part-time home business, then establishing a Yahoo! store could fill the bill—and fill it for what you might pay for video rentals for a month. You can set up a Yahoo! store for as little as $39.95 a month, a small fee per transaction of 1.5%, plus a $50 setup fee. To add icing on the cake, a simple store can be created in 24 working hours using nothing but your web browser.
The Yahoo! stores have grown into one of the largest online shopping destinations on the Web today. The Kelsey Group estimates that approximately 20% of U.S. websites are eCommerce enabled and that there are a total of approximately 300,000 eCommerce websites currently operating in the U.S. market. Based on the number of eCommerce stores (300K) and the number of Yahoo! hosted online stores (almost 40K), nearly 40,000 merchants currently use Yahoo! Small Business solutions for their eCommerce needs. That is, Yahoo! hosts approximately 1 out of 8 online stores.
Now that’s a strong business partner!
So why is Yahoo! store so popular? Because of what it offers for the asking price. Speed and ease of setting up your store. A comparatively small fee that covers all software costs, secure site hosting, traffic and sales tracking, a payment gateway to process credit cards with your merchant account, 24-hour toll-free phone support, regular website backups and restores, valuable marketing tools for your store, and importantly, exposure on Yahoo! Shopping, one of the most frequented eCommerce destination on the Net.
The end result of this bargain storefront technology is a huge interest by businesses to take the eCommerce plunge with a Yahoo! store, because a part-time home business can save thousands of dollars in programming costs, without the need of any technical skills whatsoever. You might think that because of its price, a Yahoo! store is an amateurish, meagerly featured, dumbed–down version of a real online storefront.
Not so.
For the economical price, you will get a full–featured online storefront built for professional eCommerce. But don’t take our word for it. There are more online storefronts built with Yahoo! store than any other online store software. Big names such as Ben & Jerry’s, NASA, the Guggenheim Museum, Pepsi Cola, and Yosemite National Park are just a few of the big companies and organizations that have trusted Yahoo! store for their eCommerce solution.
With Yahoo! store, there is simply no easier way to have a high–quality, professional–looking, secure online store.
Who Should Buy This Book
If you have a product, service, or hobby, or just want to prove out a business idea and would like to test it out with little risk or cost to you, and are looking for a way to create an online presence without the need of programming or design skills, then Launching Your Yahoo! Business will show you how by using the resources and technology of the Yahoo! store. Yahoo does provide a booklet with instructions on how to build and launch a Yahoo! store, but it is limited. Launching Your Yahoo! Business includes that information but goes much further by offering tips and proprietary instructions on building your Yahoo! store quickly and with little hassle, in addition to showing you how, using a Yahoo! store, you can benefit from Yahoo!’s extensive reach and leverage of the Yahoo! Shopping Network to access potential customers.
Once you have successfully launched your part–time home business, our second book, Succeeding at Your Yahoo! Business, will help you grow that acorn of a business into a full–time business.
What’s in This Book
Launching Your Yahoo! Business will give the part–time home business owner an overview of eCommerce and what it is, what makes up an eCommerce website, and how a Yahoo! store can be used to bring a business idea online, without confusing technical jargon or minute details that will tend to confuse the new Yahoo! store user that other books on the Yahoo! store program tend to be. Our intent is not to overload you with information, but to show you how easy it is to open a credible and effective basic Yahoo! store that will put you in business within a few days. This book will help you choose the right way to develop a Yahoo! store for your online business, learn the basic elements of a business plan, and discover how easy and fast it is to set up and launch a Yahoo! store, including basic marketing strategies and managing a Yahoo! store’s day–to–day business.
Sidebars
In addition to the basic information in the text, Launching Your Yahoo! Business includes several sidebars that include a definition of terms, tips, warnings, and directions to web resources.
The Yahoo! Talk sidebar describes the different terms Yahoo uses when describing its store technology and procedures. Understanding these terms will help you better comprehend the instructions and concepts in the text.
The Warning sidebar alerts you to possible mistakes you may make when setting up and launching your Yahoo! store. By avoiding these mistakes or misunderstandings, you will be able to establish your Yahoo! store without having to repeat steps or make time–consuming changes.
The Tip sidebars will help you set up, launch, and manage your Yahoo! store in a more efficient manner and help you save time and money.
The Web Resource sidebars will point your to valuable resources on the World Wide Web that will help you manage and market your Yahoo! store.
Finally, we have established a website at www.MyEcommerceSuccess.com to inform you of the latest developments in the Yahoo! store. The Net moves fast and to stay ahead of the game, you need to stay up–to–date not only on the new developments with Yahoo! store but also the newest developments in eCommerce. We suggest that you visit our website frequently. In addition, you will see throughout this book sidebars labeled Free Informative Article that offer free valuable articles on the My Ecommerce Success website for you to download once you register at the website. You can register by visiting www.MyEcommerceSuccess.com using the ISBN (0–7897–3533–4) of this book. Besides the free articles referenced in the Free Informative Article sidebars, we offer a periodic eCommerce Management Newsletter on managing and marketing your eCommerce storefront that will keep you abreast of the latest developments in eCommerce along with other valuable resources.
Yahoo! Store Setup Steps
Here’s a handy step–by–step checklist on how to set up your Yahoo! store and where to find the instructions in the book. Keep it by your side when creating and maintaining your Yahoo! store.
Step 1: Register your domain name and sign up for a Yahoo! Merchant Solutions account.
• Registering your domain name: 58
• Selecting a Merchant Solutions package: 100
Step 2: Explore the Manage My Services control panel.
• Manage My Services control panel: 121
Step 3: Accept payments online. Sign up for a merchant account or use your existing merchant account.
• Setting up your merchant account: 148
• Signing up with Paymentech: 148
• Using your own merchant account: 148
Step 4: Organize and add products to your store.
• Adding products: 124
• Adding products with Store Editor: 125
• Adding products with Catalog Manager: 127
Step 5: Plan your storefront content and products.
• Organizing your materials: 118
Step 6: Customize your store layout and navigation.
• Customizing your store: 134
Step 7: Configure your backend systems and operations.
• Setting up shipping options: 140
• Setting up tax tables: 153
• Setting up order notifications: 155
Step 8: Develop your merchandising strategy.
• Developing your merchandising strategy: 188
• Cross–selling: 189
• Gift certificates: 190
• Coupons: 191
Step 9: Launch and market your storefront for business.
• Publish your store: 137
• Basic marketing—Promoting your Yahoo! store for free: 161
• Search engine optimization: 171
Step 10: Process and manage your orders.
• Process orders: 202
• Retrieve orders: 205
• Preventing fraudulent orders: 209
Step 11: Monitor site and sales statistics.
• Viewing site statistics: 215
• Viewing sales statistics: 218
Okay. Let’s dive in and get to work!