posted on October 10, 2001 11:22:27 PM new
Has anyone invested in a Yahoo! Store? I keep hearing the stores get a lot of traffic from buyers and am tempted to start one up. But the high cost is also making me re-think this idea. Anyone running a Yahoo! Store now? I am curious to hear your thoughts and experience...
posted on October 10, 2001 11:37:25 PM new
I have never used a Yahoo Store as a seller so I wouldn't know how well they do - it might depend on where your traffic comes from. There is a .5% FVF on all sales, but if your sale comes from the Yahoo Network, they add an additional 3.5% FVF so you pay a total 4% on a Yahoo Network order.
I think it's inconvenient at best for the small sellers for the Store to require you to have a merchant account, or get one. Is there any reason, really, that they couldn't just process Store sales via Yahoo PayDirect? I guess they may not want to absorb the credit card fees for a lot of Yahoo Stores.
(A light just came on in my head - maybe that's why I see certain large sellers doing lots of auction listings instead of running a Store. Hmm.)
IMO, it looks like a Yahoo Store would be the best choice IF you can drive a lot of traffic to it yourself, rather than relying on Yahoo, AND if you already have a merchant account or can justify opening one.
Yahoo ID: grantje
posted on October 11, 2001 06:54:24 AM new
A friendly competitor of mine who was auctioning stuff on Yahoo tried to shift to store listings after the fees were instituted; as far as I know he wound up just giving up on Yahoo stores and auctions both.
I actually have a Bricks-And-Mortar credit card merchant account but have seen some small-print advisories that seemed to say they'll trash me if I use my present account for online sales. The deal is, you're supposed to get a special account for online sales, and that's what Yahoo Stores requires; I can't just attach my present merchant account to the Store function. Hence, I can't justify the extra expense and charges to set up the online flavor, not for the small volume of Store sales I'd expect.
I might try a store if I could use my existing mercahnt account, but not otherwise.
posted on October 13, 2001 08:45:11 PM new
I had been thinking about Yahoo Shopping as well. So by them requiring a merchant account, does that mean you can't use a service like PayPal either to accept your CC, you have to have a merchant account with a "real" bank? That makes things more complicated... And costly, you're right...
