Official Yahoo! Store Blog: Tips and Tricks for Ecommerce SuccessBest Practices » http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog Tips, Tricks, and Best Practices Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:34:51 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Optimize Images and Lighten your Page Weights – Today! http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2012/04/optimize-images-and-lighten-your-page-weights-today/ http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2012/04/optimize-images-and-lighten-your-page-weights-today/#comments Fri, 06 Apr 2012 22:49:19 +0000 Mike Ober http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/?p=1776 Sounds like this is going to be an article for geeks, right? Wrong. Well, I hope the geeks read it too. This is for anyone that owns or runs an ecommerce web site, but especially the tens of thousands of merchants who rely on Yahoo! to process billions of dollars in annual online sales through the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions platform – the #1 Hosted Ecommerce Solution in the Internet Retailer® Top 500 and Second 500. Whether you own the business or run the daily operations of the web site, these are two important topics for you – and I am going to provide 3 recommendations that will help you make quick changes, today.

Before we begin, let me define what I mean here by "optimize images." Images can be product images or graphics – essentially any file in an image format. Every week, I view hundreds of web sites. A consistent finding is that almost all image files that I see on web pages can have their file size reduced without impacting image quality. In geekspeak, this is called "lossless image optimization." Huh? You heard me right – these images have unnecessary bytes that bloat the file size. When the bytes are removed from the file, the only impact is a smaller file size – and a smaller file size means a lighter page weight. A lighter page weight means a faster page load time – and we all like [...]

]]> http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2012/04/optimize-images-and-lighten-your-page-weights-today/feed/ 0 Here Come the Holidays, Part Three: Make Ordering Easy http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-holidays-part-three-make-ordering-easy/ http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-holidays-part-three-make-ordering-easy/#comments Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:13:14 +0000 Yahoo! Small Business Team http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/?p=1631 Yesterday on the blog, we looked at ways to impress your customers during the holiday shopping season, your holiday promotions, recommending items to customers, and tools you can use to get the most from your store. On Monday, we discussed that all-important first step of getting organized before the holiday rush. In today's post, which is the last of our three-part series, we have a couple of tips for making ordering faster and easier so customers don't encounter hurdles while shopping from your store or during checkout. We're also leaving you with a few resources to check out for more great holiday advice.

Make ordering faster and easier

While it may seem obvious, one of the most important things you can do to help increase your conversion rate is to provide a smooth and speedy ordering experience. Here are two ways you can do this [...]

]]> http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-holidays-part-three-make-ordering-easy/feed/ 0 Here Come the Holidays, Part Two: Impressions and Promotions http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-holidays-part-two-impressions-and-promotions/ http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-holidays-part-two-impressions-and-promotions/#comments Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:50:53 +0000 Yahoo! Small Business Team http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/?p=1610 Yesterday, we kicked off our three-part series about getting your store ready for the holidays with tips for getting organized for the holiday shopping season. Today's post offers tips for impressing your customers and planning your promotions, and suggests tools to use that can help you get the most from your store this holiday season.

Impress your shoppers by providing a great shopping experience

There's no better time than the holidays to impress your shoppers by setting expectations, making your store easy to shop from, and providing excellent customer service. When customers can easily find the products they're looking for, information about shipping and returns, and your contact information, you're creating a shopping experience that can bring you repeat business.

Here are a few suggestions for how you can achieve this [...]

]]> http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-holidays-part-two-impressions-and-promotions/feed/ 0 Here Come the Holidays, Part One: Getting Organized http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-holidays-part-one-getting-organized/ http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-holidays-part-one-getting-organized/#comments Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:25:55 +0000 Yahoo! Small Business Team http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/?p=1596 Believe it or not, Cyber Monday is only seven weeks away. Is your online business ready for the fast-approaching holiday shopping season?

According to comScore, online spending on Thanksgiving Day 2010 increased by 28% over Thanksgiving Day 2009, and by 61% on Free Shipping Day 2010 over Free Shipping Day 2009. This year, along with Thanksgiving Day and Free Shipping Day (December 16), Black Friday (November 25), Cyber Monday (November 28), and Green Monday (December 12) are other key dates you should be ready for.

To help you prepare, we've put together a list of tips, best practices, and store tools you can use to help get your online business and your marketing campaigns in shape for the holiday season. Our tips will be posted in three parts over today, tomorrow, and Wednesday [...]

]]> http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2011/10/here-come-the-holidays-part-one-getting-organized/feed/ 0 Countdown to the Summit: Maximizing Your Holiday Routine http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2010/09/countdown-to-the-summit-maximizing-your-holiday-routine/ http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2010/09/countdown-to-the-summit-maximizing-your-holiday-routine/#comments Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:02:24 +0000 Administrator http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/?p=1124 The Yahoo! Merchant Summit will be September 13-14 in Silicon Valley (Santa Clara, CA). Yahoo! merchants are invited to join us for this informative 2-day event. See the agenda, register, and learn more at the Summit web site.

Today's Yahoo! Store Blog post comes from Scott Smigler, president of Exclusive Concepts, Inc., a Yahoo! Small Business partner that helps online retailers to increase revenue, get smarter, and do more with less. Services include advanced search engine optimization, profitable PPC marketing, scientific conversion testing, and optimized lifecycle email marketing. Exclusive Concepts is also a Patron Sponsor of the Merchant Summit. Scott will be speaking on several topics at the Summit, including preparations for the holiday shopping season.

When you grew up in bricks-and-mortar retail as I did, you learn to live for the holiday season. It's a magical time when many retailers go from "being in the red," to "being in the black." For many merchants it also means long hours, big bank deposits, sore backs, and future sentimentalities that can only be appreciated by those who have experienced it directly [...]

]]> http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2010/09/countdown-to-the-summit-maximizing-your-holiday-routine/feed/ 0 One way to assess your mobile strategy, today http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2010/08/one-way-to-assess-your-mobile-strategy-today/ http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2010/08/one-way-to-assess-your-mobile-strategy-today/#comments Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:51:16 +0000 Mike Ober http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/?p=1079 For someone in the tech industry, I'm not the type that stays on top of all the latest gadgets. You will never find me standing in line for an iPhone, iPad, iPod… thanks, but "I"Pass. I carry my… rather, my BlackBerry carries me. And that's enough. Except, since helping merchants be successful in ecommerce is my job, I can't ignore the dozens of stories every day about mobile commerce. I get it. It's here to stay and it is changing our lives.

In my opinion, the business question for non-brand name merchants is this. How much time should you invest in mobile today?

I recently had a Twitter conversation on the topic of mobile commerce (read the history) with @AllWebPromotion, a member of the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions developer network. We agreed that for now, the time investment to do mobile commerce properly, for non-brand name merchants, may be [...]

]]> http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2010/08/one-way-to-assess-your-mobile-strategy-today/feed/ 8 Countdown to the Summit: Searching for Profits in the Right Place http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2010/06/countdown-to-the-summit-searching-for-profits-in-the-right-place/ http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2010/06/countdown-to-the-summit-searching-for-profits-in-the-right-place/#comments Wed, 02 Jun 2010 20:30:06 +0000 Administrator http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/?p=998 Today's Yahoo! Store Blog post comes from Sanjay Arora, founder and CEO of Nextopia, one of our Patron Sponsors for the Chicago Yahoo! Merchant Summit being held on June 11. A Yahoo! Small Business partner, Nextopia's site search and navigation technology helps more than 1,000 retailers enjoy more online success, including well-known merchants such as American Muscle, Rock Bottom Golf, and Emitations.

Editor's note: The following post covers an advanced customization topic, and some recommendations given below reflect advanced site search functionality specific to Nextopia.

The experience for retailers like you, who may be attending the upcoming Yahoo! Merchant Summit, is not too dissimilar from the experience of visitors to your site. Some retailers traveling to Chicago will have an absolutely clear idea what they want to achieve (or learn or buy, etc., depending on the case) by attending. Others may not know exactly what they want to get out of the show, beyond one or two plans established before they arrive. And still others may just attend because they want to share in the warmth of the Yahoo! Merchant community, and share and gain ideas. They're not arriving with a clear agenda in mind, but are hoping that their trip will have been worthwhile by the time their plane departs from a Midway or O'Hare gate, following the Summit.

In each scenario, their respective objectives are to leave knowing more than when they arrived. Helping them maximize their learning, as well as their investment in attending, will be the efforts of the organizers who've worked hard to create a top-notch curriculum. The organizers will try to introduce learning opportunities to every attendee so their attendance ultimately is valuable. This is pretty much what site search technology aims to deliver: opportunities for web site operators to introduce site visitors to opportunities, such as product categories and details, information, subscriptions, and registrations, etc., that will enrich the visit to that site [...]

]]> http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2010/06/countdown-to-the-summit-searching-for-profits-in-the-right-place/feed/ 0 Countdown to the Summit: Formulating Your Perpetual Growth Strategy http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2010/05/countdown-to-the-summit-formulating-your-perpetual-growth-strategy/ http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2010/05/countdown-to-the-summit-formulating-your-perpetual-growth-strategy/#comments Thu, 20 May 2010 17:11:20 +0000 Administrator http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/?p=979 Today's Yahoo! Store Blog post comes from Scott Smigler, president of Exclusive Concepts, Inc., a Yahoo! Small Business partner that helps online retailers to increase revenue, get smarter, and do more with less. Services include advanced search engine optimization, profitable PPC marketing, scientific conversion testing, and optimized lifecycle email marketing.

Good afternoon folks! This is Scott Smigler from Exclusive Concepts, Inc., a Patron Sponsor of this year's Yahoo! Merchant Summit, and I'd like to thank you in advance for spending the next few minutes with me.

Given that the Summit is just 22 days away, I'd like to offer you some feedback about how I think you can leverage this invaluable one-day event for the benefit of your business. I believe the Summit will be a good time to reflect on your growth strategy. To get the most out of it, my number one suggestion is that you show up on the morning of June 11 prepared to see the forest for the trees.

A tremendous amount of knowledge will be transferred to you from subject matter experts, fellow merchants, and the Yahoo! Merchant Solutions team. Rather than simply leaving the Summit with many pages of notes that you intend to act on when you return to your office, focus instead on creating or iterating your "big picture" growth strategy. When you are clear on where you want your business to go, why you want to get there in the first place, and how you will get there, the entrepreneurial process can be pure joy – and the results will follow. Bottom line: Think strategically.

Here at Exclusive Concepts, we have created a framework called the Perpetual Growth Strategy that enables you to leverage a plethora of marketing techniques in a systematic way, in order to accelerate growth while creating greater efficiencies along the way [...]]]> http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2010/05/countdown-to-the-summit-formulating-your-perpetual-growth-strategy/feed/ 0 Rob Snell Gives the Scoop on SMX Advanced http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2009/06/rob-snell-gives-the-scoop-on-smx-advanced/ http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2009/06/rob-snell-gives-the-scoop-on-smx-advanced/#comments Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:13:48 +0000 Rob Snell http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/?p=269 http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2009/06/rob-snell-gives-the-scoop-on-smx-advanced/feed/ 1 The Twitter Train of Social Ecommerce http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2009/02/the-twitter-train-of-social-ecommerce/ http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2009/02/the-twitter-train-of-social-ecommerce/#comments Mon, 09 Feb 2009 09:18:44 +0000 Mike Ober http://ystoreblog.com/blog/2009/02/the-twitter-train-of-social-ecommerce/ http://www.ystoreblog.com/blog/2009/02/the-twitter-train-of-social-ecommerce/feed/ 1