Money in Minutes with Yahoo! Merchant Solutions

By: Rodney Goldston

Thinking of jumping into the online store arena but feeling stymied by threat of erecting an online store from scratch? Have no fear, Yahoo! has a shortcut that eliminates much of your need to know how to build a web site and still puts you in an e-commerce business.

After reading this article you will understand the benefit of erecting a Yahoo! storefront over building and hosting your own from scratch, and how to get started making money in a very short time with Yahoo! Merchant Solutions.

Yahoo!’s online storefront service allows you to easily create a professional looking online store in minutes. When setting up a Yahoo! store you don’t need any expensive or inexpensive software – all you need to get started is your web browser. It takes less than a minute to add a new item, and you can upload an item image with a single click of your mouse or touch pad.

Choosing to go the Yahoo! storefront route you can avail yourself of these three options to put up your store.

Use Yahoo!’s design wizard and tools to get your store up and running quickly and easily Pay to have a developer in the Yahoo! network to build a site for you Use third party software like, Dreamweaver‚, to build your own store

Using Yahoo!’s design tools you will design your site using their wizard. Using the wizard you pick from a pre-designed theme or pick from a range of color palettes and layouts to create your own look. If your company has already invested in branding its image then you can customize your store with built-in tools to create a design that matches your brand vision.

Building a lovely site does nothing for driving traffic to it so Yahoo! makes available their store tools to build search engine-friendly pages.

How much will it cost you to have a Yahoo! store? You will pay a monthly fee of $39.95, a $50 setup fee, and 1.5 percent transaction fee.

Choosing to rent Yahoo! Merchant Solutions is something like a Tootsie Roll (if you’re old enough to remember their marketing). You get a whole bunch of good things rolled up into one. You get web design, web hosting, and search engine optimization. Something that must not be overlooked is that you get access to a significant and constant flow of traffic via Yahoo! Shopping.

The choice to use Yahoo! Merchant Solutions over stand-alone, do-it-yourself storefronts depends your needs. Ask yourself what you want and how much time you are willing to invest. Keep this in mind. It’s almost impossible to create a truly bad Yahoo! Store. This could be the solution you need.