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General
Open Network
Relevancy
Pricing
Merchant Ratings

Why is Yahoo! Shopping changing?
Simply stated - to improve the consumer user experience. Search is fast becoming an integral part of the online shopping process. Shopping portals such as Yahoo! Shopping need to provide users with access to a comprehensive range of products and merchants and strong comparison-shopping features to attract and retain online shopping consumers.

A better consumer experience means more customers coming to Yahoo! Shopping, which in turn means an increase in traffic for merchants that choose to participate in Yahoo! Shopping. And with the move to a relevancy-based model, merchants will receive more qualified leads.

How do these changes affect my current participation in Yahoo! Shopping?
For the most part, your participation in Yahoo! Shopping will not change over the coming holiday selling season. The changes you will see this holiday season are as follows:

More consumers will see your product listings
You'll have competition from non-Yahoo! Store merchants
Your merchant ratings may change slightly

Please see the FAQs below for more information on these changes.

Open Network

Why open Yahoo! Shopping to non-Yahoo! Store merchants?
In order provide consumers with the most relevant and comprehensive comparison-shopping experience, consumer must have access to the full range of products and merchants available on the Web whether or not those merchants choose to actively participate in Yahoo! Shopping.

How will non-Yahoo! Store merchants participate in Yahoo! Shopping?
There will be two methods by which non-Yahoo! Store merchants participate in Yahoo! Shopping. Merchants can either actively participate in Yahoo! Shopping via paid inclusion or passively participate when Yahoo! Shopping spiders crawl their product listings.

Why should anyone participate in Yahoo! Shopping if they can be listed for free?
While products and merchants from across the Web will be listed in Yahoo! Shopping according to relevancy, in most cases, active participation in Yahoo! Shopping will result in a higher relevance score compared to other merchants listed. See the following FAQs on relevancy for more information.

Relevancy

How is relevance determined?
The determination of relevancy in Shopping Search Results depends on a number of different internal and external factors including, but not limited to:

Quality of titles and descriptions
Pricing
Product popularity
Manufacturer popularity
Merchant ratings
Merchant popularity
User reviews
Presence of product images
Freshness of feed data.

Note that no one factor is considered authoritative, and, in general, merchants who put user experience first will have the greatest success.

How do I optimize my site to be listed on the top?
While we can't tell you exactly - that would help merchants game the system - we can give you some general "do's" and "don'ts":

Do:

Include as much recommended data as possible
Update your feed often with current inventory and pricing
Include accurate product names and descriptions
Include product images
Check your results often

Don't:

Let your data become stale
Include just the bare minimum required data
Spam users by providing unnecessary information in your datafeed
Display irrelevant products for a keyword query
Hide a large portion of your price in Shipping and Handling costs

Pricing

Will Yahoo! Stores still pay a 3.5% revenue share to participate in Yahoo! Shopping?
While Yahoo! Shopping 4.0 is in Beta trials, we cannot release specific pricing information. That said, Yahoo! merchants will receive discounted pricing relative to non-Yahoo! merchants.

Merchant Ratings

Why have merchant ratings?
In user surveys, consumers consistently indicate that merchant ratings are important. In addition, every major comparison-shopping site features merchant ratings.

What are "multi-dimensional" merchant ratings?
Each merchant will have an overall rating, as well as five component ratings which reflect the merchant's performance in specific areas: 1) price, 2) shipping options, 3) delivery, 4) ease of purchase and 5) customer service.

Here is an example of a merchant rating would appear on Yahoo! Shopping:

How is the overall merchant rating calculated?
The overall merchant rating, the one that will be displayed alongside Shopping Search Results, is basically the average score of the five component ratings for that merchant. There are some other factors that go into the rating as well, but they are not made public in order to protect the integrity of the rating system.

Can consumers view the individual component merchant ratings?
Yes. For each merchant, consumers can browse through all of the ratings that have been submitted for that merchant on the Merchant Review page. Consumers can get this page easily because there is a link to this page next to every merchant rating. Each of these ratings consists of the following parts:

Overall rating
Component ratings
Written review of the merchant that is submitted by the user

Here is an example of how an Individual Merchant Rating might appear for merchant:

How do users submit merchant ratings?
Consumers may submit a merchant rating for any merchant from the Merchant Review page. In addition, consumers who make a purchase from a Yahoo! merchant will receive an e-mail after their purchase is complete asking them to submit a merchant rating.

Is every merchant rated?
All merchants will participate in ratings, but there may be times when an individual merchant does not have a rating displayed. This is usually due to the fact that it takes 10 individual consumer ratings before an overall rating is displayed. In these cases, a "Not yet Rated" icon would appear next to the merchant's name.

Do ratings ever expire?
Yes. The Yahoo! Shopping Team wants its merchant ratings to reflect the most recent experience that consumers have had with its merchants. For this reason, merchant ratings will expire after a set time period, currently set at six month.

Will my current Yahoo! Shopping ratings show up on the new site?
Yes, merchant ratings from the past six months will move to the new site. However, since reviews older than six months will no longer appear, merchants may see a positive or negative change in their score on the new site.

Do ratings appear immediately after they are submitted?
No, ratings are held for three to five days before they show up on the site.

Does every rating that is submitted make it up on the site?
No. When a review is submitted, it is first screened automatically for profanity. If any profanity is found in the review, it is not posted on the site. Next, Yahoo! Shopping runs its automatic anti-fraud controls to make sure that one user is not submitting multiple ratings for the same merchant.

What if I have a complaint about a rating?
Merchants will be able to submit complaints about reviews they do not feel accurately represent the quality of service they deliver. The Yahoo! Shopping Team will review the complaint and respond back to the merchant within five business days.

Are these ratings ever removed?
Yes, although the guidelines for removing ratings once they are posted are quite strict. This is necessary to avoid the appearance of favoring any one merchant and to maintain the integrity of the merchant rating system. Some of the reasons a merchant rating would be removed include: offensive language that slipped through our profanity controls; an off-topic posting; or a posting that is clearly written by another merchant.

Can merchants respond to a rating?
No, merchants may not post ratings of their own stores, nor of other stores. If a merchant believes a rating should be removed, the merchant file a complaint.

Why can't merchants respond? Isn't it their right to defend themselves?
Allowing merchants to respond publicly to reviews leads to the merchant rating system becoming a discussion group rather than a ratings system. In addition, a lot of "flame wars" pop up between merchants and customers. Occasionally it is true that a rating may appear on Yahoo! Shopping that is not 100% accurate or fair. But good, consistent customer service is the way to a good rating, not responding to negative reviews.