Shopping Cart Software

[Gunslingergirl]

Hey all,

I have another question. It has been suggested that we might want to use Yahoo! stores. I did a little research on their site, and it looks like it might work.

I'm just wondering if anyone here has used Yahoo! stores, how easy it was to set up and if it works well.

I'm thinking I would prefer buying the software and having our own cart, but I was asked to check out Yahoo stores. I thought I'd ask here and see if anyone could give me some feedback.

Thanks.

[Dante2004]

Yahoo stores is decent, but check out the fees. Also, you cannot customize it as much as some of the other carts...but then again, maybe you don't need to. Also, the affiliation with Yahoo! may make your online store look a little more "legit". All depends on how nice your site looks / how big your business is...maybe you don't need the rep boost.

[Gunslingergirl]

Dante,

Thanks for the info.

I'm a bit worried that using a Yahoo store might be a step back for us. We have a nice site which people tell me looks like a site a much larger company would have. I'm concerned that having a Yahoo store might make us look like we're playing in the minor leagues. Although I guess some pretty big businesses use Yahoo stores so maybe that stigma no longer exists.

[JWDesignCenter]

I don't know... i wouldn't do it. This is just my personal opinion but I don't associate my business with yahoo or anything like that for the same reasons you just stated Kristine... when you're a bigger player, you do your own. I'd also much rather have the customize-ability lol of another cart. My personal cart of choice hands down (right now) is Zen Cart. You can do just about anything to it, the security and ease of use is there, and it's just been what's worked out best for most of the ecommerce sites we've set up.

[Gunslingergirl]

Jen,

That's my fear as well, that we'll look like we're small potatoes.

I am still looking at other options, so we haven't settled on a Yahoo store yet.

Thanks for the feedback.

[bill benson]

My guess is I would view a yahoo store as a part time home business. Having said that, I know very little about it. If you find a yahoo store you think is well done and professional, post the url. We can pick it apart to see if we think it looks professional and will do much for you in the SEO area.

Yahoo says it's search engine optimized, but I'd like to see a site to see if I think it can do well on Google. That's where most of your traffic will come from on a well optimized site.

[Gunslingergirl]

Bill,

Ben & Jerry's uses a Yahoo store, which I thought was pretty unusual given the size of that company.

I am concerned about placing on Google as well, because we have some nice placement now and I don't want to mess that up. Another thing is that with Yahoo stores you pay a monthly fee. With our own cart we simply buy the software and then it is ours and we don't have to keep paying additional monthly fees. That would seem to make more sense to me.

Thanks for the input.

[bill benson]

I looked at the Ben & Jerry's site. To me the site looked amateurish. Maybe that style is appropriate for that site though? I didn't see any SEO to speak of on the site. I just looked at a couple of the catalog pages. They do have 1000 plus inbound links though - but like you said, they are Ben and Jerry's.

If you want placement on Google, I'd stay away from it. Like you noted as well, its expensive.

[Gunslingergirl]

To tell you the truth, I hadn't really taken a look at the Ben & Jerry's site. I just remembered seeing it listed as a Yahoo store customer which just struck me as really odd.

I think I'm pretty much set on staying away from Yahoo stores. There's just too much downside.

[Aaron Hats]

I normally wouldn't revive an old thread but I didn't want to lose the good info that's already been posted here.

We've outgrown our current shopping cart and am shopping for a new one. In my search I came across this review of the top 20 shopping carts and thought some others here would find it helpful.

Aaron