Cross-Sell, Keywords, and by the way
Yahoo! email changes on 12/4!

Just in time for the holidays, Yahoo! announced two major upgrades and one big change to Yahoo! Stores. Here's our quick take on all three.

10/2007: Cross-Sell Upgrade
Does it REALLY matter: Yes

Gotta love it…an automated recommendation engine that uses Yahoo!'s advanced behavioral targeting technology. Now you can cross-sell relevant items on both your product pages and shopping cart automatically. Recommendations are based on what buyers have actually purchased or viewed in your store (no more guess work).

Word on the street: We've had a few customers call in more than a little confused about how to "turn on" this feature and how it compares to the cross-sell applications developed by Yahoo! partners (like, oh, say us.) Short answer-it's not completely intuitive and what cross-sell feature is best for your store depends on your goal.

10/2007: Keyword Upgrade
Does it REALLY matter: Yes.

Finally…a way to understand what keywords are converting into sales in your store. The new Yahoo! keyword tool simplifies this process by providing a ranked list of keywords, not only showing what is converting, also which keywords lead to which products. AND these keywords will be easily exported for use with your favorite SEM tools.

Word on the street: HUGE HUGE HUGE advantage going into the holiday season-provided you're ready to do SEO battle. We think merchants ready with a plan for Google, Yahoo!, and MSN search optimization using this tool stand to drive a lot of new traffic.

11/2007: Email Changes - Effective 12/4/2007
Does it REALLY matter: OH Yes.
!! Unannounced in blog

MARK THE DATE: 12/4/2007. Yahoo! will replace current email service with Yahoo! Business Email. No interruption to service planned, BUT existing email addresses and messages will not be transferred automatically to your new service. CHECK YOUR EMAIL NOW for a message from Yahoo! about now to avoid losing important messages and prevent email from bouncing.

Word on the street: We LOVE that we get Yahoo! Business Email! But did it HAVE to happen in the middle of the holiday selling season???

A Year of Yahoo!

It was a busy year for the
Sunnyvale gang. Let’s look back
and remember. (And if you see
a !!, we thought it was a really
big deal.)

11/2006: IP Address Blocker
Blocked suspect IP addresses from placing orders.
Did it REALLY matter? Depends. For store that get targeted often by fraud, nice option.

!! 2/2007: Design Wizard updated
Provided new, easier way to get stores up and running fast.
Did it REALLY matter? OH yes. Especially if you were new.

3/2007: Payment Center update with coinciding checkout manager changes
Combined enhancements to payment processing with changes to shopping cart.
Did it REALLY matter? Yes. But it kinda just happened without too much fuss.

4/2007: Yahoo! PayPal Checkout
Enabled PayPal. Yay!
Did it REALLY matter: OH yes. One less excuse for a shopper not to buy.

!! 5/07: 301 redirect available for ALL Yahoo domain iterations (Unannounced in blog)
Allowed all previous URLs associated with a Y! Store to be permanently redirected to single domain.
Did it REALLY matter? OH yes. Search engines associate all the traffic of Y! domain iteration with your primary domain without hitting you for a duplicate content penalty.

5/2007: Shipping and Tax Wizard
Upgraded important checkout features.
Did it REALLY matter? Yes, but only if you were a pre-launch store.

!! 6/2007: Cart URL change:
Revised the URL for Yahoo! shopping carts
Did it REALLY matter? OH yes. It was pretty seamless operationally, but if you didn't account for the change in your analytics, boy were your stats off.

8/2007: Single Promotional E-mail
Offered simple one-time email blast tool
Did it REALLY matter? Yes. If you didn't have a campaign tool, it gave you one.