Yahoo Merchant Solutions has been the host to more than 500 most popular retail sites online. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the Yahoo Merchant Solutions is the favorite online store builder amongst ecommerce companies.

Various packages

The versatility of Yahoo Merchant Solutions is what makes it so popular. With three packages to choose from, namely starter, standard and professional, merchants of varying levels can take their pick according to individual business objectives. The starter package combines easy tools with rich UI to facilitate easy creation and setup of online stores. The presence of an ecommerce wizard feature enables you to easily append product information for your store. Billing is seamless and easy with a variety of payment modes accepted namely debit, credit cards as well as through PayPal. Yahoo Merchant Solutions also comes armed with exclusive and free marketing services, which jumpstart traffic to your store! One of the highlights of these marketing services is the grand opening email, which announces important events happening in your company or store. Shipping and order processing is facilitated easily and you can track progress and statistics with the help of customized, organized reports. The starter package is priced at 39.95 dollars a month and includes usage of third party tools for store creation, import of existing databases into the store, upload of product related information, checkout page customization etc. However, the starter package lacks crucial features like cross selling and gift certificates, which have proven to show positive results in sales. The standard and professional packages have these features but are higher on the price at 129.95 and 299.95 dollars a month. Unlike the starter package, these two packages offer seamless and real time integration capability with your backend systems as well as new order notification through fax. You can also leverage Yahoo Web Analytics to track sales progress through real time reports. The latter two packages also allow you to export orders to the UPS WorldShip.

Benefits accrued

As an ecommerce company, leveraging the Yahoo Merchant Solutions sets you at a clear advantage. You not only get access to easy and seamless online store creation tools but also a customized look, which sets you apart from the scores of other ecommerce sites out there. You can also leverage the expert services of a developer expert to create the ideal ecommerce store for you. This is a paid service but the results are worth the investment. In addition, the Yahoo Merchant Solutions also facilitates access to third party software like Dreamweaver, to create a customized, professional online store. Through a series of automatic coding, this online store builder also facilitates search engine friendly web pages. All descriptions and titles are coded to ensure search engine robots can actively seek out your ecommerce store. Considering that Yahoo is one of the two top search engines today, this is an ecommerce advantage you don’t want to miss out on! Keyword based static URLs help enhance your SERPs online as well.

Customized checkout and shopping cart

Yahoo Merchant Solutions also helps your ecommerce store setup customized fields to facilitate order information. Applicable shipping fees and taxes are calculated on an automated basis, thereby helping you avoid the hassle of calculations. Special progress indicators help you tweak your ecommerce store towards the kind of customers you get. The online store creation tool also allows you to facilitate download of products on the store easily. All contents of shopping carts are saved for 2 weeks. You can also choose between multiple page or single page checkout.

Tracking progress

Probably one of the biggest ecommerce advantages you get from the Yahoo Merchant Solutions is the ability to easily track progress based on a variety of parameters. From the ability to see sales based on orders, items sold and revenues earned to understanding referral sources and how customers find your site to checking which pages on your store garner maximum traffic, the Yahoo Merchant Solutions facilitates all of this and more! Your marketing and promotional strategies can be fine-tuned as per Web Analytics’ reports. Performance indicators help you identify which are the hottest selling products on your store as well as which products cannot be found on the store. By understanding metrics like checkout page abandonment by customers or pages customers ‘bounce’ off, you can enhance the traffic to sales ratios.

Clearly, the Yahoo Merchant Solutions provides a distinct ecommerce advantage to anyone interested in ensuring more visibility in the ecommerce scene. Maybe it is time to join the bandwagon of the 500 retailers who have already leveraged Yahoo Merchant Solutions services!