|
| | 
In this issue:
Feature Spotlight: Yahoo! Wallet comes to Yahoo! Store.
Feature Update: Create coupons for your customers.
Merchant Tips: Growing your online business.
Tech Update: Building a better ordering system.
News from Yahoo! Shopping: Revised guidelines.
E-commerce on the Web: Links to sites, features, and stories.
Yahoo! Wallet comes to Yahoo! Store.
Now customers can complete their purchases quickly using Yahoo! Wallet no matter how they arrive at your Yahoo! Store. Shoppers sign up once at Yahoo! for a Wallet account -- then their billing and shipping information is stored securely on our servers. It takes only a couple of clicks to complete a sale.
Yahoo! Wallet's fast, secure Express Checkout feature is a powerful tool for customer loyalty on Yahoo! Shopping. We're delighted to make it available to all Yahoo! Store merchants.
To activate Wallet for all your orders, go to the "Order Form" link on your Store Manager page, and select the "Accept Yahoo! Wallet for all orders" button. Then, you can use the "Preview Order Forms" link to see how your Shopping Cart appears with its new "Yahoo! Wallet" button.
Learn more about putting the Wallet to work for you: http://store.yahoo.com/wallet.html
Feature Update: Create coupons for your customers.
Coupons are here! Now you can easily create coupons for your customers and offer discounts for a specific dollar amount, percentage off, or for free shipping. Just create a coupon code in your store manager, then publicize it in a newsletter, email promotion, web banner, or offline advertising.
To receive their discount your customer enters the coupon code on their order form at checkout time. You can track a variety of coupon offers on the "Coupon Manager" page. Use coupons to attract newcomers and bargain hunters, reward loyal customers, or to appease a customer after a problem has been resolved.
Merchant Tips: Growing your online business.
Thanks to everyone who emailed to share their good ideas with fellow Yahoo! Store merchants. We've seen lots of thoughtful advice and helpful suggestions. Please keep your good ideas coming. Here's this month's sampling.
"Webmiss" at Handcolor.com an art gallery and source of supplies for hand-tined and hand-colored photography, wrote in with several worthwhile ideas:
"Register a descriptive, easy-to-remember domain name that matches or complements the name of your business, then use it for your Yahoo! Store web address. This makes it easy for customers to type your URL and keep coming back.
Use the Store Manager to discount your products, either individually or within a whole section of the store. Create a selection of discounted items, and run an online sale. Be sure to let shoppers know by mentioning your "sale" items on the front page.
Promote, promote, promote! Print your store's URL on all correspondence - including email, newsletters, and business cards."
The savvy merchants at Alcohol Controls, Inc. specialize in profit-generating products for the bar industry. They use Yahoo! Store to serve the needs of a niche market. Here's their great idea for business-to-business vendors:
"Have a few items that can be used by the home consumer. Many non-business viewers will enter your website when surfing or looking for something else. If you have some products they can use, you may be able to make a sale where you wouldn't have before. We added a personal digital breathalyzer to our site and it has become one of our top sellers!"
Have any advice for a brand new Yahoo! Store merchant? Can you offer tips for building a better online business or providing a great customer experience?
We'd love to hear from you. Send your Merchant-to-Merchant tips to
store-newsletter@yahoo-inc.com.
Tech Update: Building a better ordering system.
We've released upgrades to Yahoo! Store's ordering system software to make it better, stronger, and faster. Here's how this upgrade will benefit you:
Speed: You'll see improved speed, especially when processing a shopping cart that contains many items. In fact, there's no limit to the number of items a shopper can put in the cart. Credit card authorizations and tax & shipping computations are faster than ever.
You'll also notice that the "Shopping Cart" page now uses http:// instead of https:// for faster loading. (All pages where customers enter order information are still secure.)
These technical improvements are part of our ramp-up for another big holiday season - only 105 shopping days until Christmas 2000!
News from Yahoo! Shopping: Revised guidelines.
Yahoo! Shopping is developing a new set of Merchant Guidelines to help participating merchants offer outstanding customer service. This is just the beginning; the program's goal is to guarantee every purchase made through Yahoo! Shopping and provide a positive, risk-free shopping experience to all customers. Top-flight customer service continues to be a great way to keep your customers coming back.
E-commerce on the Web: Links to sites, features, and stories.
Managing the Digital Enterprise
http://ecommerce.ncsu.edu/topics/index.html
It's back to school time and we're off to E-commerce College. This online guide is the innovative companion to a graduate level management course about e-commerce offered at North Carolina State University. You'll find articles, news stories, audio files, and links to sites that present a broad view of the Internet Economy, and how it's affecting the way we all do business. Whether you're a newcomer to the online world or a veteran looking for a little extra insight or a little bigger scope here's a great archive and a collection of public forums to discuss e-business issues and strategies.
Caveat Vendor: Reducing Online Credit Card Fraud
http://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/articles/card_fraud.html
Here's an article by Steve Patient from the Web Developers Journal that looks at the neglected victims of online fraud-you, the merchants. If you've had trouble with fraudulent orders, scroll past the technical details about online security, (features that we've built for you in Yahoo! Store, and probably more than you want to know unless you're a developer), and take a look at "Ten Anti-Fraud Tips for Online Vendors" The list is an astute mix of common sense and Internet smarts. Here are some suggestions: verify the buyer's contact information, be wary of shipping to a P.O. box, see if the name in the email address matches the name on the credit card, and be cautious if a buyer seems completely unconcerned about extra costs or add-on charges.
|
|
|
