Yahoo Launches new product search engine

[EquityMind]

Yahoo to go against Froogle? The SE wars heat up yet again.

[reuters.com...]

EquityMind

[EliteWeb]

Saw this at the bottom of CnN's website this morning. Are they all ONLY yahoo stores?

[EquityMind]

Wow...certainly looks that way doesnt it? Every query I did came back as a Yahoo Store although the format looks exactly like Froogle including the sort by high/low price...

EquityMind

[nanocet]

No, they are not only Y! Stores.
Any online merchant will be able to be a part of Yahoo Shopping/Product Search starting now.
It is a PPC solution, with the PPC costs being set by Yahoo themselves. (some categories are as much as $1.25 per click)
For many Y! Stores, it will be far to expensive to be included and they will end up opting out of it.

Based upon a well known Y! Store owners forum, most Y! store owners get very few sales from Y! Shopping (they report most sales are from free Google search results), but get a lot of clicks from Y! Shopping. The ROI for many would be non-existant and negative in many cases.

Since these store owners get so few sales from there anyway, they would, in many cases, be far better off opting out of being included, and instead rely on Overture PPC ads which do appear there, as they have control of those costs.

[johnser]

"the red-hot search services market"

Look on the bright side - Right now, we're where its at!
J

[sun818]

Is it okay if I post the e-mail I got from Yahoo regarding this? Or would be there be copyright issues? Anyone that signed up for their Beta would have gotten this e-mail.

[Marcia]

Thanks sun818, but I'm afraid we can't post such information, much as we'd all like to see it. It would help if you or someone could totally paraphrase the main points for us.

Thanks!

[gramski]

Basically the email from yahoo said that they are discontinuing the beta service from October 15 and if you want to be included you have to sign up and send in a data feed. It will be a fully paid listing service at fixed prices. They have a list of what the fixed prices are at [productsubmit.adcentral.yahoo.com...]

It seems to me that the fixed prices they have chosen are pretty much the current top bids at overture for those categories - for most of my sites they are exactly the same prices as the ov keywords I use.

I looked at the sign up process and it seems they are only taking submissions from US advertisers - I tried to enter details but the country,zip and phone number drop downs would only accept US details.

[Compworld]

I do not know how successful this is going to be for the smaller merchants. I had already spent $15.00 in clicks, but the sales were only a few. I think I will be reconsidering the Yahoo Product Search. If one out of every five click was a sale, then ok, but it isn't currently. Has anyone else tried the Yahoo Product Search?

CompWorld

[kanetrain]

I am currently a Yahoo merchant and listed in SHopping. My click-to-conversion rations were horrible. I would pay 1.00 in clicks for every 1.00 of merchandise sold. Yahoo Shopping conversion ratios are traditionally very very low.

I think Yahoo is shooting themselves in the foot. The click rates are way inflated.

What is your conversion ratio?

[sun818]

I notice Yahoo click prices are inflated above the prices DealTime or some of the other comparison engines are charging. I just don't know if the better name recognition will bring more sales. Since I've been included in the comparison, 2.5% of my overall traffic is from Yahoo! Shopping. I did get 1 sale out of 42 clicks ($18.48). Only way I can see this working if you only list very high margin items, no point in selling anything under a $20.00 net margin.

[Compworld]

Since we sell mostly electronics and computer oriented hardware/software, the cost per click happens to be quite high for us also. We will probably not be depositing anymore funds until their prices come down to earth. One would think that if you lead the person right to the order page, then they would order. Why would anyone click on the item that they wanted to buy, and then leave? Since you already have the price, a title, and min-description, what else do you need? Yes, it does increase traffic, but who needs useless traffic? I think it was way to early to release this to the public. This could possibly backfire on them big time. Their high CPC prices are going to alienate both the small and medium sized shops. Forget about the mom and pops. Aft that, all you have is the corporations. Once they see they are not receiving their money's worth, I think they might change their marketing plans also.

CompWorld

[kanetrain]

Thier rates are so high is almost a joke. And the conversion ratios are so low, it's equally laughable.

I just saw that they added something to their FAQ stating that at the end of each quarter they would revise the pricing. This was not there before. I'm sure that many merchants are finding out what I have know for a LONG time. Conversion ratios on Yahoo shopping are the worst of any engine out there. BE VERY CAUTIOUS about loading a bunch of cash in there and watch your ROI.

They overestimated the value of Yahoo Shopping by a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG shot.