A small Yahoo! Store ecommerce business that once pulled in $1600 a week and drops to $200 a week is analogous to a bricks-and-mortar style demolition. We talked to one such Yahoo! store merchant a while back who told us this very thing happened to them, almost overnight.
Over the summer, everything was going fine, and then all of a sudden, it was like a demolition team packed a thousand pounds of dynamite under their search results and blew them off the top floors of Google.
The Yahoo! Store merchant archetype that tends to play victim to such a brutal topple isn’t completely innocent. Many (and we’re not sure what happened to the one mentioned above) have let their store become run-down. They have been selling the same products for years, using the same old copy, site design, functionality and outdated Yahoo! Store. The problem is that it has not been necessary to change anything for years. Profits kept pouring in as they always had–plus, everyone knows “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But unfortunately, this mentality doesn’t work well in the high speed ecommerce world. For the owners of old Yahoo! Stores, many of the cutting edge functionalities for Yahoo! Stores aren’t compatible. And, it’s likely that all that tired, and possibly duplicate copy, exposed them to a quick drowning when Google began making changes to their search algorithm. Also, competition on the internet isn’t like it used to be.
It’s tough out there now, and unless Yahoo! Store merchants work constantly to improve, the competition will catch up. If merchants rest on their past successes while everyone else upgrades and moves ahead, new shoppers will purchase from the brighter, better store, every time. Just look at Wal-mart and K-mart…how can K-mart ever keep up, now that they’re so far behind.
Many Yahoo! Store merchants have, over the years, lost touch with how much it costs to stay in the ecommerce game, and if a small business ever sinks down to making $200 a week, how can they even consider a starter custom ($3-4k) re-design, etc.. Our recommendation to Yahoo! Store merchants who want to keep their stores competitive is to:
1) Get a site re-design at least every 2-3 years.
2) Keep up with industry news, like Google’s recent updates, by signing up to receive blogs, newsletters, etc. from a reputable source, like FastPivot’s ecommerce blog.
3) Sign up for a SEO analysis at least twice a year, to be on the safe side.
4) Have your Yahoo! Store developers perform a site audit on your store every year to check for glitches and to suggest the latest updates to Yahoo! Store design, Yahoo! Store function, and third-party features for Yahoo! Stores. Contact FastPivot to learn more about these.
If you are a Yahoo! Store merchant who has ever been victim to relegation demolition, let us know (by commenting on this blog) how you made a comeback.
Excellent information Jonathan! Successful bricks & mortar retailers typically do a store remodel every 5 – 7 years, or sooner. But with an e-commerce store, I think it has to continually be tweaked and adjusted. Kind of like being a boat in a river; if you aren’t paddling forward (against the current) you will slide backwards. So keep paddling forward!