Yahoo StoresEmpowering eCommerce

Yahoo! StoresEmpowering eCommerce

A Yahoo! store can give your business the look and feel of a large business. But it does something more important. Can you set up and run an online storefront by slapping together the parts of an eCommerce website from different organizations and companies on the Web? Sure. You can set up a free website from the several free website companies on the Web, add a shopping cart from some eCommerce solution company, do some free advertising on discussion lists, post some notices on discussion groups, and buy an email list to promote your business with.

You will soon find that this patchwork approach will not only cause problems and inconsistent service, but does not project a professional look for your business. The Yahoo! Stores program provides a comprehensive, integrated, one-stop shop for creating a credible online business (see Figure 1.1).

Figure 1.1. College Sports Stuff is only one of the many small online businesses satisfied with the Yahoo! Store solution. "The templates were easy and if I had any problems, I knew I could call the support groupthey gave us the answer immediately."

Free Info: Successful Yahoo! Stores

Yahoo! provides a list of businesses that have used the Yahoo! Store program to realize their dreams. Find it at smallbusiness.yahoo.com/merchant/testimonials.php.

o how do you make a buck online? Well, there are several sources that an online store can use to generate revenue using several revenue models. In addition to revenue from selling products or services, revenue sources could also include selling advertising such as banner ads or sponsorships on your website or selling subscriptions to information such as newsletters or electronic magazines. But if eCommerce was easy, as easy as that, everyone would be doing it. To be successful at eCommerce a business must be able to perform quite a few tasks.

Free Info

Download the free informative article entitled "Seven Cardinal Virtues of eCommerce" at www.myecommercesuccess.com.

The first one is the most important: Even before you even think of creating your online storefront, you need to develop a reason why consumers should come to your website. If you're successful at creating such a draw, you must have a digital presence that encourages shoppers to browse your offerings. Once you've done that, you have to convince the shopper to complete a transaction by offering easy-to-find products or services.

Tip:

How many products should you offer?

You don't need to have hundreds of products to sell to have a successful eCommerce business. Many successful online businesses sell fewer than 20 products. Yahoo! Store has found that adding more items to a store does not guarantee more sales. Yahoo! Stores that sold fewer than 10 products had almost as many sales as those stores selling 50 or more.

Other considerations include a secure and reliable company to host your online storefront; an easy to set up and maintain eCommerce website; an online shopping cart; a way to take and process credit cards online; the ability to ship products or download information; a "back office" to track your business and monitor how much money your website has made where you can make real-time website design changes, monitor your database, and more; and, of course, a well thought-out marketing strategy.

The remaining parts of this book will show you, by using the Yahoo! store technology, how easily and cost effectively you can perform the tasks necessary to create, maintain, and promote a world-class eCommerce website.

But a Yahoo! store can only provide the tools for success. In order to actually become a success in eCommerce, you need to be aware of the three Cs of eCommerce.

The Three Cs of eCommerce

A successful online storefront does more than just sell product or services. It offers fresh content applicable to products and services it sells and a way to interact with shoppers and customers. These important elements of an online storefront are known as the three Cs of eCommerce and must be considered to make your online store more of a success.

• Content When merchants think of content on the online store, they think primarily of product or service descriptions. But separate content that is relevant to your target audience is also an important part of an eCommerce site.

• Community Site visitor interaction with each other and your company through discussion boards and other forums of discussion makes shoppers feel part of your business.

• Commerce What you sell but also the other ways to monetize, or make money from, shoppers who visit your site.

That's the eCommerce site equation: Content builds community interactionsomething to talk aboutwhich establishes credibility with shoppers, which generates sales from visitors to your online store. The proper integration of content, community and commerce will entice shoppers to come back to your storefront and buy more from you again and again. If you're successful applying the 3 Cs, you will develop a following of shoppers and customers that will turn into sales.

Let's take a look at the 3 Cs.

Content: Providing Fish Food

People use the Net to learn and good content will attract them to your storefront. If it's interesting enough and if you took care to provide content that is refreshed periodically, it will make visitors come to your site, stay, and keep coming back for more.

But content serves another purpose, a very important one. Search engines love content. The more content you have on your online store, the better chance search engines will find your site. And if you optimize your site content pages properly (see Chapter 12, "Search Engine Optimization and Listing"), your site will show up high in search engine results.

Does your site content have to be directly related to your product or service? Not necessarily. The purpose of content is to provide information that meets your shoppers' needs and desires. A good online store is not only a place to buy, but a place to learn, too. While learning, visitors linger and soon become buyers. For example, take a pool chemical supply company that sells online. Its content could educate consumers in the proper use of pool chemicals, how to use them and in what quantity, and so forth. But the business could also have content on its site that speaks about pool safety for children. A person looking for animation on pool safety might find his or her way to the pool site and then become a customer.

There are four types of content that you can place on your eCommerce site to become

• The Referrer

• The Informer

• The Advisor

• The Context Provider

The Referrer: You're the expert when it comes to knowing the products or services you sell. So use this knowledge to help your visitors understand all aspects of your product or service. Take the time to research the information your site visitors might want to know, and then create an "Additional Resources" section in your online store that points to places on the Web that your visitors and shoppers will find useful.

For example, suppose you sell computer products. In your additional resources section, list content sites, community sites, and discussion boards where shoppers can find reviews comparing one product you may sell to another. That would be a very time-consuming task. Instead, you could refer your customers to sites that specialize in these reviews, such as ZDNet, CNET, and TechTV (see Figure 1.2). Or suppose you sell furniture or other home décor. You can refer visitors to your online store to companies that provide design ideas and project estimators.

Figure 1.2. CNET is known for its expert reviews on everything technology. Whether it's personal electronics, computer gear, digital cameras, or hosting and Internet service providers, they review them and tell you the best in class. http://www.cnet.com

The Informer: Make your site a place for news and opinions on your market and product or service niche. Articles, opinions, even a reminder service can inform shoppers to your online store of what's new in your marketplace.

Providing what's new in your market niche on a regular basis will entice shoppers to return to your store time and time again.

YellowBrix provides a wealth of free content from hundreds of content sources including news, weather, sports, business, entertainment, and technology news (see Figure 1.3).

Figure 1.3. YellowBrix is a leading provider of real-time syndicated news services and web content solutions. Use them to find content that you can place on your online store. http://www.yellowbrix.com/

The Advisor: Many shoppers need advice to make a buying decision. By acting as a trusted advisor, you not only build confidence with shoppers, but also increase the possibility of making a sale. A good example of this kind of advice can be found at Amazon.com. They pioneered the concept of reader reviews for the books they sell and video reviews for their videos. Anyone who has purchased the product can write his or her own review. A peer review looks more objective to a potential customer and increases the possibility of a purchase; shoppers trust other consumers' opinions more than they trust advertisers. Ask visitors to your site to email you their peer reviews of your product or service.

The Context Provider: Another way to provide content on your storefront is by offering informational tools to help shoppers make buying decisions. Consider giving shoppers the capability of solving a problem or determining their shopping needs in the context of your site using online tools such as checklists, calculators, evaluators, and simulators. Context-specific information can be either product-specific (helping potential customers make a buying decision at your site) or shopping-specific (such as links to currency exchanges, international holiday listings, and a world time calculator).

Community: Staying Connected

People go online not just to be informed but also to interact with other people. Filling this need at your web store will help you turn shoppers into customers and customers into repeat buyers. Content can attract shoppers to your site. But to generate a continuous flow of repeat visitors, you need to provide access to an interactive community of some type.

Tip:

Another benefit of a newsletter is that it can add valuable content to your site by posting it and archiving older newsletters. Again, search engines love content and this will aid them finding your online storefront.

An electronic newsletter sent out periodically to customers and prospects can keep your subscribers informed about what's new on your site. You can announce new features, new products, or new promotions that can be used to drive subscribers back to your site on a regular basis. Use your newsletter to nurture potential customers until they're ready to purchase a product from you or sign a contract.

Asking questions, discussing problems, raising issues, and the general camaraderie that develops in an interactive community breeds a kind of loyalty that's beneficial to the success of your web store. And loyalty breeds repeat visits.

Another way to engage your customers and prospects interactively is through the use of discussion lists. A discussion list is a discussion board via email. Subscribers to your discussion list receive email on a regular basis containing comments that are echoed to every subscriber on the list. A well-executed discussion list can gain wide visibility and a very good reputation for your business and for the products or services you sell. The easiest and free way to add a discussion list to your eCommerce strategy is by using Yahoo! Groups. You can create a discussion list by using their free Yahoo! Groups service. You can even use Yahoo! Groups to compile and send out your periodic newsletter.

Yahoo Talk: What are Yahoo! Groups?

Yahoo! Groups (groups.yahoo.com) is a FREE electronic mailing list service provided by Yahoo!. It's one the easiest ways for companies to communicate with prospects and customers on the Internet.

Commerce: More Than One Way to Skin a Dollar

There's more than one way to make money with your online store. This is done by creating multiple revenue streams. Adding different revenue streams to your site will leverage your site traffic and generate additional income. For example

• What you primarily sell This is the main revenue stream of your web store. It's what you built your e-business around and should be your prime focus.

• Sell advertising If you've built up a considerable level of visitors to your site on a regular basis, you can consider turning some of that traffic into revenue. Advertisers are always looking for ways to get their product or service message out to potential customers. They know that placing ads on websites that cater to shoppers who might buy their product is a wise way to spend their advertising dollars.

• Become a Referrer You generate additional revenue by referring your shoppers to a non-competitive merchant in exchange for a percentage of the sale.

Develop several of these income streams simultaneously, and you can grow your site revenue beyond your product or service offers.

Now that you've passed eCommerce 101, so to speak, it's time to identify a customer need to target your eCommerce business. If you already have a business, it still would be worthwhile to read the next chapter to refine your target customer and sharpen your strategy on how to sell to them.