Alternatives to Yahoo Stores?

I don't like their new pricing and would be interested in leaving them.

[jsglobal]

As long as I have been selling online, the only option I have used to build and host my sites is Yahoo Stores. As some of you may know, however, Yahoo has just made some drastic changes to their e-commerce program that basically amounts to a massive price hike and not much else. I, for one, am extremely put off by the changes and, for the first time since I've been in business, would be very interested in finding an alternative to Yahoo Stores. Does anyone out there know of a good alternative -- a company that offers similar site building tools (for people who don't really have the know-how to build a site completely from scratch), stat tracking tools, and other features that used to make Yahoo Stores an attractive option before their prices got out of hand? If you know of any, I would really appreciate it if you let me know. Thank you.

[Travoli]

Would an e-commerce software package be worth looking at? You could just build your own independent site, host it yourself, and keep all the profits.

[jsglobal]

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately, since I've been relying on Yahoo as long as I have been selling online, I have to admit that I am somewhat ignorant about what else is out there. So much so, in fact, that I don't really even understand exactly what you are referring to and where I can get it. It sounds like I might need a less advanced option, but please let me know if you have reason to think otherwise. Thanks again.

[4crests]

What new pricing would that be?

Have they changed pricing lately? I know they changed it several months back, and also just recently added some merchant solutions that you can upgrade to.

I hope there hasn't been any price changes I don't know about. If you know of anything, please post it.

thanks!

[Travoli]

Basically I am just talking about leaving yahoo stores and building your own e-commerce site. It might be something you need to have professionally done, but the large up-front expense might still be worth it compared to what you are currently paying. It is worth looking into.

[seeber01]

Miva Merchant offers a nice shopping cart solution, I have used that in the past. Basically you look for a host that offers it. Miva Express is a simple one page shopping cart, but the full-blown cart with excellent stats, is called Miva Merchant.

You would need to create your own html pages for content and tie them into the shopping cart. You can upload a database (in various formats) to update your products.

I think the one real benefit of Yahoo Stores however, is being part of the search on Yahoo for products, that could be very hard to put a value on. If I were doing ecommerce now (I haven't in over 3 years) I would lean toward Yahoo Stores simply because of the automatic exposure.

Debs

[jsglobal]

Thank you to everyone who has responded to my question (and I apologize for taking so long to respond myself, but I've been away for a few days). In response to 4crests' posting, Yahoo has completely overhauled their entire system. Basically, they've done away with Yahoo Stores and have replaced them with Yahoo "Merchant Solutions." There are now three different plans -- one for $39.95 a month (which is missing so many features that it's essentially useless), one for $99.95 a month, and $299.95 a month. In addition, their transaction fees have also gone up, and Yahoo Shopping is now a pay-per-click system. This fact also addresses Seeber01's comments. I also thought of the exposure on Yahoo Shopping as a major benefit of Yahoo Stores, but now that I have to pay for clicks, I figure that I might as well just spend that money on Overture or something. The real benefit of Yahoo Shopping was that it was not only automatic, but it was free. Therefore, I'm having a harder time justifying using Yahoo in the first place. Do you guys agree? Thanks again.

[4crests]

JSGLOBAL...

Yes, you can upgrade to one of those 3 plans. However, you can stay with the old one if you want. I haven't seen anything that has told me I MUST upgrade.

It is only new stores that must choose one of the 3 new plans. If they ever REQUIRE me to switch to one of the new plans, I will be forced to leave them. I use way too much bandwidth and storage space. My costs would go through the roof.

Have you heard anything about them forcing us to switch?

I haven't so far.

[jsglobal]

Hi 4Crests. Well, yes and no. As far as I can tell (for now anyway), you don't have to switch monthly hosting plans. However, if you want to stay on Yahoo Shopping (which, as I said, was a major reason I had been with Yahoo in the first place), you'll have to switch to the pay-per-click format after Christmas. Unfortunately for me, however, I was just about to start a brand new store. Obviously, had I known that this change was coming, I would have gotten it in before it happened, but Yahoo didn't give its customers any warning, as far as I know. Therefore, to start this new store (and more in the future that I have planned), I would be forced to choose one of the new plans if I were to stay with Yahoo. And, by the way, from what I have seen from looking around the new system so far, it's not only more expensive than the old system, but much more complicated/confusing as well.

[4crests]

JSGLOBAL..

Thats a relief. In my situation, I don't really care about Yshopping. But, it would be a sad day for me if they forced me to go with their new plan. Thanks for the info.

[gpilling]

forgive my ignorance, since I am a newbie - but the webhost that I am using offers two different shopping cart systems for free. This is the second host that I have seen do this, and both were using a Cpanel interface. In fact, I found the new host just by searching for Cpanel ( I use PHP Nuke, and cpanel autoinstalls it)

Perhaps if you need to leave Yahoo because of those outrageous prices, this might be an option. I have only briefly looked at the features, but one of them seemed to offer an amazon type experience for the buyer, and the other would calculate shipping costs etc.

A recommended free open source shopping is oscommerce.

I also think Paypal has an ecommerce solution now.

[edited by: Travoli at 1:01 pm (utc) on Oct. 22, 2003]
[edit reason] delinked [/edit]

[AmeriClicks]

There are several options to Yahoo stores.

OSCommerce was previously mentioned and that is what I would switch to.

Kurant also offers some options with it's storesence products I think you will need to find one of their resellers however.

Jeff

[edited by: Travoli at 5:07 pm (utc) on Oct. 27, 2003]
[edit reason] delinked, corrected spelling [/edit]

[Speeeedy]

jsglobal,

For all my e-commerce clients I use PayPal enabled shopping system and code it to my preference, while tailored into a custom website of my design, to give the products justice in representation.

Yahoo Stores and even Ebay Stores are disgusting cookie-cutter money makers in my opinion. Paypal takes relatively small fees in contrast to the others. Way cheaper, very simple, no monthly b.s, and it is a name that people trust, bar none.

Let me know if you want to know how it works.

--Jim---