Customize: Design It Yourself or Hire an Expert

The decision of whether to customize the store in-house or hire a company to do so depends on a few things. Before you make a decision, ask yourself these questions:

• Does my staff or I have the time to do it in house?

• How much experience do I have in customizing the store, including knowledge of RTML?

• What is my budget for hiring an outside company?

• When do I need the new site or advanced features to be up and running?

• Would I rather spend my valuable time marketing my site to generate more revenue or trying to customize the site?

The old saying goes, "Time is money." If this is your full-time business and your time is better spent marketing the site or running the day-to-day operations, spend the extra dollars and hire a professional. Hiring a professional company will ensure that you get it done right the first time, and the company also will most likely know how to convert more visitors into customers with some of the advanced tools and features it can implement.

Companies such as Solid Cactus (www.solidcactus.com) (see Figure 5.4), have developed hundreds of successful Yahoo! stores in almost every industry. Using companies such as Solid Cactus ensures that the job is done right the first time. Solid Cactus can also help you market your site online with advanced marketing tactics.

Figure 5.5. Solid Cactus has developed hundreds of Yahoo! Stores and is Yahoo!'s premier store developer and trusted partner.

For a list of other Yahoo! store development companies, visit www.myecommercesuccess.com.

Customizing your store and taking the site to the next level can be exciting and challenging at the same time. After all, you are probably moving from a part-time hobby into a full-time business. In the next chapter, we look at specific advanced layout, navigation, marketing, and search-engine optimization features.

Warning: Research-Development Company

Make sure the company you hire has experience developing Yahoo! stores. Ask to interview some of its clients, and review its portfolio of other Yahoo! stores. Hiring a company without the proper experience can cause more work and money down the road.