Colorado Web Solutions

Segment Yahoo Store Customers with Customer Manager

Posted on June 29th, 2011 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

While many of our clients have already integrated Yahoo’s Customer Registration, we’ve been getting a lot of questions regarding the Customer Manager and how this can be used to more effectively manage your existing customer base. I thought it would be a good idea to briefly cover some of the major features and benefits available via the Customer Manager link found in Store Manager.

Customer Manager at its most basic level is designed to generate reports that store owners can use to more effectively understand and target their customer base. The reports allow owners to sort and filter relevant customer information and past order data. Prior to this important release, there was not a way to access or use any of the customer information collected via the Customer Registration module. Now, store owners can filter customers into specific groups or segments, gaining a better understanding of who their customers are – which translates to better marketing strategies.

The filtering and sorting allows store owners to find out what products customers are buying and when. Owners can use this information to create unique “single-use” coupons designed as an advanced method of up-selling or cross-selling. Owners can use email marketing, showcasing new or sale items targeted to specific customers who have purchased similar items in the past. The filters are quite powerful and can be used to show order values, order histories, total number of orders and much more.

If used properly, the Customer Manager can be a powerful tool to understand your customer buying habits. If you’re currently using Customer Registration and you haven’t taken a look at the Customer Manager, we strongly suggest you take some time to review what this feature can do.

For more information on Customer Registration installs, please click here:
http://www.coloradowebsolutions.com/blog/general-news/yahoo-store-customer-registration-installation-starting-at-150/

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Add Sizzle to your Yahoo! Store this Summer

Posted on June 20th, 2011 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Here at Colorado Web Solutions we offer quite a number of great features as part of our Standard Design packages. While the feature set we offer for our Standard packages covers the “basics” one should expect from a quality ecommerce site, there are several add-on features we offer that can really take your store to the next level. We often have current or new clients ask us what’s the latest feature that we’d recommend based on what other stores are adding. So, here is our “Summer Sizzle” add-on list for Yahoo Stores:

Java Rotational Banner

Many sites these days have some type of promotional banner on the homepage. Often the display will rotate every few seconds showing several banners in a relatively short span of time. A rotational banner serves to not only educate potential customers regarding products and promotions but also creates a visually appealing area on a homepage to further accentuate a sites aesthetic appearance. Here at CWS we prefer to use Java Script banners rather than Flash for this purpose. The reason is clients can then easily switch out for new banners without the need for continued developer involvement. Our Java banners are Variable based and quite easy to maintain.

http://www.coloradowebsolutions.com/rtml-home-flash-center.html

Cascading Menus

Cascading Menus, Fly-out Menus, Accordion Menus – are all names for the same feature. Rather then having the main categories listed on your homepage navigation and if clicked, the customer is taken to a sub-category page, a Cascading Menu allows for the sub-categories under a given Parent Category to be displayed directly on the homepage. This is achieved by hovering over a parent category and the sub-categories are then shown. There are many different options for how the “fly-out” can be displayed. If you’re interested in exploring how Cascading Menus can benefit your site, please speak with one of our Project Managers.

http://www.coloradowebsolutions.com/rtml-cascading-menus.html

Floating Cart

We’ll be honest – in the initial days after Yahoo released their Floating Cart, there were a few issues with the functionality and cross-browser compatibility concerning this feature. However, Yahoo has worked very hard at eliminating most of the bugs. We’re now comfortable installing this feature on clients’ sites – and it can be a tremendous feature for up-sells. The reason being, customers can add items to their cart – without actually going into the cart. Customers can continue to browse a stores product line or check the contents of their cart from any page!

http://www.coloradowebsolutions.com/rtml-floating-cart.html

Social Media Add-on

Social Media is all the rage and it’s likely that this vertical channel for sales will continue to increase and improve in the years ahead. To date the most popular of the social media links has been Facebook, Twitter and Blogs. While this will likely remain for the foreseeable future, there are other companies and services that will inevitably be added to the list. Yahoo offers their own version of a social media add-on which Colorado Web Solutions can add to any Yahoo store on the Merchant Solutions platform. For older stores, we’ve also come up with our own social media script that offers similar functionality to what Yahoo provides.

Contact us for pricing

Advanced Product Reviews

There is likely no better reason for customers to buy from a store – then other customer’s opinions. Having Product Reviews on a Product page can greatly increase conversions. Customers can review what others are saying about a product or even about a store’s service and if the review is positive, the chances are high the customer will purchase. Product Reviews can also greatly enhance the overall look and feel of a product page. Having Reviews, a well laid out Product Table and some form of Cross-sell, can really help round out the overall appearance of a product page, likely leading to more conversions!

There are certainly many more features that can add excitement to your store, however I feel the above features are probably the most sought after – at this time. As more features are created, refined or become popular, we’ll be sure to let you know!

http://www.coloradowebsolutions.com/rtml-product-reviews.html

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