Six Secrets of a Successful Yahoo! Store DesignShubie Kumar
October 06, 2008
Ecommerce has evolved and it's no longer a rocket science nor does it
cost a hand a leg to start your dream online venture. You can actually
start selling in minutes with no upfront investment and that too sell
like a pro. Hints, hints, hints - yeah you have discovered the magic
wand - the Yahoo! Merchant Solution's ecommerce system.
While
you can indeed start selling well using the default setup, it's only
half the potential you would use of the world's most popular ecommerce
system. A professional design or redesign of Yahoo! Store can boost the
performance (read your profitability) by many times, of course if done
well.
Yahoo! Ecommerce system has been around for almost a
decade now and almost all of the top selling stores were redesigned and
extended with custom RTML features. You must be wondering by now what
exactly a redesign does to a Yahoo! Store which makes it so powerful.
Sure there are several important factors associated with a redesign and
it's equally important to know them to be able to get the most out of
it.
Consider your Yahoo! Store as a warrior which is going to
win the success war online for you from your well established
competitors. Now because you spent nothing upfront and got a rented
warrior doesn't mean you can't defeat your enemies. Here is how:
1.
Wings are opened - a competent yahoo store designer/developer would
rewrite the templates of your store to open up its wings. I literally
mean 'wings' as it makes your store fly while your competitors can only
walk or may be able to run in the sky of Usability, SEO and Conversion
apart from design and structure.
2. Maximum customization - You
need not be worried that your warrior could be taken any less seriously
because it looks like several others. The default template system only
lets you select from few color schemes and change your logo/header etc.
However a redesign helps infuse your brand in each and every part of
your store and it's no longer a boilerplate template but your own
branded online store. After all brand matters in any business.
3.
Weapons are loaded - If you heard that "Yahoo! Store" is the strongest
warrior among all ecommerce solutions, a redesign of the store helps
load it with customized weapons (read RTML features/enhancements), all
the popular ones. Some of them (e.g. Automatic Meta tags generation)
are only made for this platform. That too you can still load products
using a CSV database file - the same way.
4. Never breaks down -
Not even for a second even while the wings are being opened, branding
is being maximized or weapons are being loaded, it simply never breaks.
The lifeline (default set of templates) always remains intact.
5.
Always remains secure - Just because a lot of things have been added
doesn't mean it leaves room for any vulnerability. The checkout system
remains intact while it can be customized to match the rest of the site
design.
6. More reach, maximum ROI - the bottom line, with a
redesign its able to get the maximum reach (SEO friendly features are
enabled), convert even more (marketing features) and provide you the
maximum return on your investment (ROI).
Having known these
'six secrets and benefits of a Yahoo! Store Design' I am sure you would
want to equip your store with the best of it. As you did not make an
initial investment with this ecommerce system, you can use your surplus
budget to get it redesigned. If you do not have a budget at all, you
sure could start with the default one and earn some money out of it
before making this wise investment.
The best thing about the
custom design of a Yahoo! Store is that while it maximizes the
performance of your store, makes it even easier for your customers, it
doesn't add a bit of complexity for you in managing it. You use the
same 'Store Manager' and 'Store Editor' systems to manage your store
and same database upload method/file to upload products.
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