Official Yahoo! Store Blog: Tips and Tricks for Ecommerce SuccessHolidays »

Free Holiday Email Marketing Webinar from Exclusive Concepts

Jennifer Farwell — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 19:52:15 +0000

On Wednesday, November 2 at 2 p.m. ET / 11 a.m. PT, join Yahoo! Merchant Solutions developer partner Exclusive Concepts for their free webinar, "Email Marketing: How You Can Increase Revenue this Holiday Season and Beyond."

Holiday ecommerce spending is expected to increase, yet many retailers won't capitalize on the increase of organic additions to their database. Get tips from Exclusive Concepts about how to utilize email marketing more effectively, to help you increase profitability this holiday season and [...]

Here Come the Holidays, Part Three: Make Ordering Easy

Yahoo! Small Business Team — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 21:13:14 +0000

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 [...]

Here Come the Holidays, Part Two: Impressions and Promotions

Yahoo! Small Business Team — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:50:53 +0000

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 [...]

Here Come the Holidays, Part One: Getting Organized

Yahoo! Small Business Team — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 20:25:55 +0000

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 [...]

The Gift That Can Give You More Sales

Jennifer Farwell — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 22:32:52 +0000

Free Shipping Day falls on December 16 this year. If you want your store to be part of this holiday shopping event, or to offer free shipping for a longer period of time as a holiday promotion, chances are that you've already been planning for a while. If you haven't been, it's time to start.

If you haven't heard of Free Shipping Day before, it's the day on which thousands of online stores offer free shipping with delivery by Christmas Eve. FreeShippingDay.com estimates that this year, more than 2,000 merchants will take part in the event. According to comScore, online shoppers spent $942 million on Free Shipping Day in 2010, up from $586 million on Free Shipping Day in 2009. Of the top shopping days in 2010, comScore reports that Free Shipping Day was behind only Cyber Monday and Green Monday, two other days that you may want to plan free shipping [...]

Scrapbook.com Spreads Sunshine With a Unique Holiday Promotion

Jennifer Farwell — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 23:22:21 +0000

Late last week, I heard about a unique holiday promotion that Yahoo! store Scrapbook.com put together for this year's holiday shopping season. Scrapbook.com, provider of scrapbook supplies and scrapbooking ideas, wrote their own holiday song. After writing the song (titled "It's Always Sunny In Here"), they recorded it, and then filmed a music video in their warehouse. The entire production of the song and video – writing it, singing it, acting in the video, and filming it – was done entirely in-house by the staff of Scrapbook.com, as well as some of their friends and family.

If you haven't yet seen the music video, I highly recommend having a look. You can use the player below (view full article for the player), or view it at a larger size on Scrapbook.com, where it's presented on a 1950s-themed page that coordinates with their holiday promotions [...]

Countdown to the Summit: Maximizing Your Holiday Routine

Administrator — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 20:02:24 +0000

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 [...]

Creating a Better Holiday Rush

Jennifer Farwell — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:04:38 +0000

Holiday shopping season is now well upon us, and if your store has deals, online shoppers want to know about them. So what kinds of deals are shoppers looking for? According to survey results released by Shopzilla, this coming Monday: More than 80% of shoppers will be seeking discounts 69% of shoppers will be searching for [...]

Optimal Cross-selling for the Holidays

Administrator — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 15:12:52 +0000

With the ups and downs of the market, it’s no wonder that online merchants are expecting a challenging holiday sales season this year. This makes it more important than ever to optimize every sales opportunity. If you haven’t done so yet, now is the time to focus on increasing order size by effectively cross-selling [...]

Giving the Gift of Increased Order Size to Yourself

Administrator — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 18:41:55 +0000

I was recently reading another great FutureNow post by Bryan Eisenberg on their 2007 Retail Customer Experience Study. The study surveyed leading online retail sites on factors of customer experience such as quality of product copy, quality of product images, presence of return policy, and so on. Towards the bottom of the post you can [...]