Yahoo Store question

[Bubzeebub]

Does anyone here run a Yahoo Store?

[Bubzeebub]

I'm looking to see if anyone knows of ...or has ever used...Yahoo Store's Coupon Manager.

[beautykat]

I am currently using Yahoo! Merchant Solutions. What questions do u have regarding coupon manager?

[Bubzeebub]

I think the Coupon Manager is a ripoff. I mean, they want significantly more for it. Is there any way to be able to have customers enter in a code to deduct from the final price (like enter in code: FUN and receive 10% off your order) without doing the Coupon Manager?

[beautykat]

Other than telling your customers to put a coupon code in the comments boxes during purchase and then deducting it manually after that, there is no way, that I know of for you to implement the coupon system in Yahoo Merchant Solutions. You may want to seek out those RTML programmers.... they might be able to help you.

Yes, it can be a ripoff to have the coupon code manager. But you are getting more than just the coupon code. You are also getting a mailing list and cross selling management software (and more that I cannot recall). May not be that bad after all since, you might be able to entice some shoppers to buy from you with these tools. The extra revenue will offset whatever extra monthly fee you have to fork out.

** I do not work for Yahoo! nor do I invest in Yahoo! stock. These opinions are strictly based on my experience with their products.

[Bubzeebub]

What are the Cross Selling Tools?

The mailing list can be created on the cheap with some forms or scripting I'm assuming. Correct me if I'm wrong. I just don't see the justification in the 30 or 40 dollars more per month.

Have you ever used it? If so, what were your thoughts?

[beautykat]

I am currently using their Standard package which is $60 more than their Starter package but with a lower transaction of 1.0% instead of 1.5%.

The cross selling tool allows you to cross sell items within the shopping cart. For example, "get these together".

True, you can script your own mailing list by downloading your order info and copying all the customers email to a software of your preference. The mailing list software takes care of these automatically for you.

Let me know if you have more questions.

[Bubzeebub]

You must be moving a lot of product to warrant the added expense.

Isn't it possible to also create a form and then have users just enter their email list to subscribe to a newsletter. I'm not sure what the difference is between doing it that way and using some third party software like Constant Contact though.

[beautykat]

Yes, you can always use Constant Contact to manage your mailing list. But Constant Contact is more suitable for opt-in marketing. What about those customers who bought from you and did not opt-in by signing up for ur newsletter? How do you manage them? I guess one good thing about Constant Contact service is their ability to tell you how effective your newsletter marketing is doing.

Btw, we were able to implement newsletter signup without Constant Contact, though we would love to have "Tell You Friends" feature in our website. Yahoo! does not support that for now.

Before we upgraded, we were also trying to justify having to generate $12,000/mth sales to breakeven on the 0.5% difference in transaction. But now that we have the package and is able to see sales coming in using our coupon code, we think that it had not be a bad decision.

[Bubzeebub]

I see. It just seems that unless you have a wide variety of products and/or are making significant monthly gross sales, the Coupon Mgr. seems questionable.