Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Think of Yahoo Stores as the landlord at the mall. They don't sell anything. They just provide the facilities for people like you who want to appear legitimate. (Maybe you really are legitimate, but it's the perception that counts.)

Yahoo would also have you believe that they help with marketing as well. Most etailers, though, find that they don't do much proactively, and if you want to sell stuff, you still have to draw traffic yourself. Yahoo just provides a well-known marquee name (for the mall).

My son has an electronics/radio business and uses Yahoo, eBay, etc. and says they are OK, but he generates most of the traffic himself. He doesn't spend much effort on his own site, because most of his volume is sold through the "malls." They really do provide a kind of credibility that's hard to create on your own.

Hope this helps.

Hi Gary,

The third-party storefronts are very popular with small business because they are pretty easy to setup and maintain and cost much less than if you had the storefront built for you.

No, they do not carry inventory, they provide the backend and frontend technologies and there are many options out there and many things to consider along the chain from display pages to shopping cart to checkout and beyond.

Unfortunately, time and space don't permit it here, but contact me offline, I don't mind spending a few minutes talking to you and sharing my knowledge one-on-one.