Amazon and Yahoo Stores not Viable Solutions?

[macdebbie]

I am curious about both Amazon Webstore and Yahoo Stores.

I am a start-up business, and am trying to choose the correct shopping cart.

There have been alot of negative comments here about both Amazon Webstore and Yahoo Stores, frequent comments that "if you want to run a real business" these are not good alternatives.

From a business standpoint, would it not make sense to use one of these initially, to see how it goes, and then "upgrade"? Or is that asking for trouble?

I well understand the limitations of these 2 solutions, however, I also can see the advantages of having a "turnkey" solution when just starting out.

My aesthetic sense tells me to do it right the first time, and grin and bear the cost, and my business head says keep costs low initially until the business grows.

I'd like to know what others think, and others experience with these 2 platforms.

Would also like to know if either of these platforms can handle drop-shipping from multiple vendors.

[AdLibBob]

I am the webmaster for a small business, and manage several website. One of the websites I manage is a Yahoo! store. While it certainly has it's drawbacks, it has a lot of advantages, too. It's extremely customizable, visually and technically. Their customer service is awesome, and I have more than 99% uptime on their platform.

So before you dismiss it because it's not a "real" website, give it a chance. There are lots of small businesses successfully running an ecommerce site using a Yahoo! store.

[dangdatkat]

I heard it was a quick good way to get a store up. If you have some programming experience there are cheaper more customizable options but if you would rather manage a store instead of learning to code, go for the Yahoo store.

[macdebbie]

Does anyone know how Yahoo Stores compares to Amazon Webstores?

Do either offer drop-ship capability using more than one manufacturer?

[compusolver]

I don't have any Amazon or Yahoo Stores experience, but I shut down an ebay store over a year ago because of changes they'd made that were not store-friendly. Looked into Amazon, but it seemed expensive.

No matter which of the two you go for, consider also having your own web store front. By using Joomla and Virtuemart (both free, powerful and flexible cms systems), you can have a great website storefront.

[macdebbie]

Sorry, don't know what you mean about having own storefront. Amazon Webstore and Yahoo Stores are "storefronts". What would an additional one add?

[jannmirch]

Macdebbie,

I can only speak to Yahoo Stores...I had a client who came to me having already set up an account with Yahoo. She started trying to set it up herself and got frustrated so she called me. We tried to work with the Yahoo design interface and found it a huge pain. We finally ended up scrapping it and going with a custom built solution.

It's hard when you're first starting out; you don't want to throw money away but at the same time, it makes sense to invest wisely at the start.

You may want to find someone who can build a site for you with the features you need (drop shipping, discounts, etc.) and you manage the site once it's set up. You'll be even more frustrated later if you spend a lot of time and energy trying to figure out how to set up the site and still end up paying 6 months or a year from now to have the site set up by a pro.

[compusolver]

By "your own storefront", I mean using your own domain name, thus having your own website. Links from your Yahoo store, etc., could point to your own website where you could offer more products and have more control without the added costs.

It would also give you greater flexibility with search engine optimization which is directly related to the well known important attribute of brick and mortar stores known as "Location, location".

The free software I recommended - Joomla and Virtuemart, might enable you to handle your own web development. If not, at least developer costs will be much less and you'll definitely be able to maintain your own website.

See http://www.joomla.org and http://virtuemart.net for more info. Also, there are some informative videos about Joomla on http://compusovler.com

[macdebbie]

I'm sorry if I'm being dense here, but an Amazon webstore at least IS your own website, using your own domain name, and allows some customization and SEO to be done. There is also alot of native SEO built in, it being Amazon.

What am I missing?

Just curious (this stuff is still new to me - not trying to give you a hard time!!) - how would I promote 2 sites with the same products? Wouldn't that be canibalizing one or the other?

[slimwoman]

Macdebbie, Do you have enough traffic and customers to justify setting up a customized shopping cart? If not, I would recommend Amazon. I have had a seller account with them for a couple of years. I pay a fee to them on each sale. They offer a pro merchant account for $35-40. I have no experience with Yahoo.

I am using Google checkout, Pay Pal, and Amazon to market online. As soon as my volume increases, I will look into adding a customized solution on my domain.