Colorado Web Solutions

Yahoo Store Redesign

Posted on July 1st, 2015 by Brent Carey

Yahoo Store Redesign of Promomento.com

We’re excited to showcase a new Yahoo store redesign collaboration between Promomento.com and Colorado Web Solutions. Promomento.com has been a long time client. In fact, we designed our client’s first site almost 9 years ago. Recently they decided it was time to make their site responsive due to Google’s new push towards having all sites mobile friendly.

In the initial review of their site, it was determined that the coding structure was quite antiquated and a full redesign would be required in order to implement a fully responsive design. Together with the client, we determined the design direction and feature implementation needed. The result of our combined efforts is a fantastic visual transformation. The resolution, font size, spacing and image sizing were all quite small on the old site. The original site had been designed with smaller monitors in mind. Additionally, in the years since the site was launched, our client has added new programs, features and categories. In order to get the content on the page, we embedded content blocks where ever we could find space within the existing structure. This ultimately led to a fairly packed homepage with a lot of information making navigation that much more difficult.

Here’s an example of what the homepage looked like previously:

As you see, the old design tried to pack a lot of information into a narrow area. As more programs and features were added to the site, the more crammed each section became. Additionally, the original site did not incorporate Cascading Menus. With so many categories and sub-categories, a lot of clicking was required to drill down into the many sub-categories present.

Below you’ll see the newly redesigned store. Rather than using blue for a background, white is used. This gives the impression of a lot more white space between elements and it allows each content block to really pop. The full screen is used which allows for the same number of elements to be spread out over the entire screen. Again, making it easier for the eye to catch different blocks of content. Cascading Menus/Mega Menus have also been installed. The result is customers can easily drill down to the specific sub-category they’re interested in. Also, the new design is fully responsive. No need to worry about Google dinging the site’s search engine placement.

A redesign can do a lot to increase conversions. It can also greatly help to better showcase new features, products, categories and content. In todays competitive market it’s imperative to keep your site up-to-date with a contemporary look and feel. If you haven’t redesigned your Yahoo store in the last few years, it’s time to start thinking about it. With over 11 years of Yahoo design experience, Colorado Web Solutions can help. If you’re interested in having your Yahoo store redesigned or interested in converting your store to a responsive design, please contact Colorado Web Solutions for more information. We can be reached Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm MST at 303-482-2080 or via our contact form.

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Redesigning Your Yahoo Store

Posted on July 9th, 2013 by Brent Carey

Redesigning a Yahoo store is a key factor in taking both your sales and your customers’ experience to the next level. A redesign can completely change the landscape of your site and in doing so can reinvent your brand image and showcase your products in a completely fresh – and competitive manner.

While is it relatively easy for anyone to purchase a domain and Yahoo store, throw up a few banners, add some products and images and get the site live – it’s much more difficult to differentiate your site from your competitors without hiring an authorized Yahoo developer to customize the look and feel. Without a developer not only will the overall look of your site likely suffer,  it is also much more difficult to get the proper exposure and conversion rates with self-managed Yahoo stores. As the market intensifies with more competition – the need for attractive, well laid out and highly functional stores has become not only more prevalent, but a prerequisite for any successful online store.

That’s where a company like Colorado Web Solutions comes in. There are currently a handful of Authorized Yahoo store developers out there. Each developer can bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to any small to mid-size business looking to improve the experience associated with their store and product line. Here at Colorado Web Solutions our primary specialty is in designing attractive Yahoo stores or re-designing existing Yahoo stores. As our portfolio grows – so does our list of successful clients.

I can’t say enough about the benefits of taking a slow to convert, self-designed Yahoo store and transforming it into a professional site laid out in a manner consistent with the buyer’s preconceived notions of how a website should function and what a “real” website should look like. Here at Colorado Web Solutions we’ve seen store re-designs double and even triple existing conversion rates within months. Some of the benefits can include; highly customized product detail pages that accurately and professionally present your products, a fresh and contemporary feel to the overall site experience, professional branding throughout the site, new feature sets, seamless transitions from store, to cart, to blog and so much more.

The need for a Yahoo store developer like Colorado Web Solutions in redesigning your site cannot be underestimated. In todays marketplace, it’s imperative to showcase your products as professionally as possible and this is often not possible without using a development service that will take your store beyond your expectations.

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Yahoo Small Business Shipping Rate Change

Posted on February 12th, 2013 by Brent Carey

All Yahoo store owners need to remember that the United States Postal Service has recently updated their shipping rates. If your Yahoo store is currently offering USPS and  you are using a Rate Table, chances are you’ll need to update your rates. Yahoo has provided some good links for review if you plan on updating your Shipping Manager.

• How To Create a Flat Rate Shipping Rule
• Creating a Table-based Shipping Rate
• Setting Up Shipping Rates and Rules

If Yahoo’s current shipping module doesn’t meet your needs, you might consider an upgrade to a 3rd party shipping module. For more information please see this page:

Yahoo Advanced Shipping Manager

If you have questions – don’t hesitate to contact us here

Thanks –

CWS staff

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Yahoo Launches New Marketing Dashboard

Posted on May 9th, 2012 by Brent Carey

Yahoo recently launched their new Marketing Dashboard. The release of this new tool allows Yahoo Small Business owners the ability to:

• Review new online marketing opportunities
• Get a comprehensive snapshot of marketing results, website statics and more.
• Assist with overall marketing management

The Dashboard has been created in such a way that it offers Yahoo small business owners a comprehensive overview of their entire marketing program, while at the same time delivering those metrics in an easy to understand format. Key Features of the Dashboard, which are free to all users, include:

• Monitoring of Search Engine and Directory Listings
• Analysis of site performance metrics
• Detailed Campaign Tracking
• 24 hour Support for the tool
• Online “reputation” management – allowing store owners the ability to review social media and more

If Yahoo Small Business owners are looking for greater marketing assitance they can also opt into a paid services extension of this program which offers:

1. Local Visibility Pro – providing data submission into over 100 search engines
2. Reputation Management Pro – Owners will be given more detailed data and the ability to track competition
3. Integrated Campaign Tracking – 3rd party marketing vendors can be integrated into the Dashboard for even more control of additional marketing initiatives.

We highly recommend that Yahoo Small Business owners take some time to review this exciting new tool:
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/marketing-dashboard

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Improved Yahoo Site Search

Posted on November 3rd, 2011 by Brent Carey

Yahoo recently launched a beta release of their new and improved Site Search. It has been a long time coming and everyone at Colorado Web Solutions is very excited this tool is now available to Yahoo merchants. As all Yahoo store owners know, Yahoo’s default search queries have needed improvement. This has changed with the release of a more advanced site search that allows customers to refine their search results based on a number of criteria. Here’s a few of the new features available:

• Add items to the cart directly from the search results page
• View search results using a grid or a list format
• Choose the number of results shown per page
• Refine search results using filters such as brand, price and category
• Sort by relevance or price

Yahoo’s new site search also allows store owners to customize the search settings to some degree. Owners can choose to show the “Add to Cart”, hide non-orderable items and define how the filters appear on the results page.

If your Yahoo store is using default templates – you can simply enable the feature from the Site Search Settings Tool in Store Manager and then perform a full store publish. If your store is using Custom templates, you will need an authorized Yahoo developer to integrate the search within your custom template.

We feel this feature will greatly enhance your ability to convert customers from search queries. We are really excited Yahoo managed to launch this feature pre-holiday. There’s no doubt the new site search will enhance the overall experience of any Yahoo store.

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Should you hire a developer to design your Yahoo Store?

Posted on July 1st, 2010 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

I’m going to be starting a series of posts that deal with designing and developing a Yahoo store. I believe it’s critical that potential clients understand what a development company can bring to the table. It’s my hope that this series of posts might help people get a better feel for what Yahoo Small Business and Colorado Web Solutions can do to assist with your eCommerce experience.

The Yahoo store platform is one of the best solutions for small business owners to get their products online – fast. The platform continues to evolve from the days of Viaweb to what it is today – a multi-faceted ecommerce platform for small to mid-size businesses. Yahoo continues to deliver a solid store platform and the feature set just keeps on growing – the newest addition being a Floating Cart module.

One of the initial attractions for small business owners toward Yahoo! Merchant Solutions Stores is that they can get their products online without needing to be a programmer or having extensive training in coding and internet marketing. Yahoo provides the hosting, gateway, analytics, ability to upload product content and images and a host of other ecommerce related services for a relatively cheap monthly and per transaction fee.

During the early days of Yahoo’s store platform, it was easy for anyone to purchase a domain and store, throw up a few banners, some products and images – and sales would come. In the years since then, it has become more and more difficult to get the proper exposure and conversion rates for self-managed Yahoo stores. With more and more competition – the need for attractive, well laid out and highly functional stores has become not only more prevalent, but in my opinion, a prerequisite for any successful online store. Unless you are the only site in the world selling your product, you will have more potential selling more with a great design and navigational flow.

That’s where a company Colorado Web Solutions comes in. There are currently a handful of Authorized Yahoo store developers out there. Each developer primarily works with Yahoo! stores and can bring a wealth of experience of knowledge to any small to mid-size business looking to showcase their product line on the Yahoo platform. Here at Colorado Web Solutions our primary specialty is in designing attractive Yahoo stores or re-designing existing Yahoo stores. As our portfolio grows – so does our list of successful clients.

I can’t say enough about the benefits of taking a slow to convert, self-designed Yahoo store and transforming that store into a professional store laid out in a manner consistent with the buyer’s preconceived notions of how a website should function and what a “real” website should look like. Here at Colorado Web Solutions we’ve seen store re-designs double and even triple existing conversion rates within months. On that same token – customers that have never sold on the web have decided rather than hassling on their own for hours upon hours to get their store as they would want – hire us to create a Yahoo Store for them.

In many ways that decision alone has put them way ahead of the game. By choosing Yahoo Store as a platform they already are outpacing many would-be store owners that either decided on a platform that far exceeds their capabilities or chose a cheaper platform in hopes it will perform as good as the “big boys”. OS commerce is a perfect example of this. We see clients over and over that try to build on the “free” platform and are almost ALWAYS unhappy with the results. By choosing Colorado Web Solutions to develop their Yahoo store, they’ll receive not only a top notch development process, but also our accumulated knowledge from selling and promoting on the web for almost 15 years. Every one of our clients will be armed with marketing ideas, how-to tutorials, management ideas and more by the time they complete their Yahoo Store development cycle with us.

My next post will cover in greater detail the advantages of having a professional design firm redesign your existing default Yahoo store.

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CWS Client CoffeeCakes.com Celebrates 15 Years of Online Success

Posted on February 3rd, 2010 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Colorado Web Solutions is pleased to present this article from the PR wire today about our friends at CoffeeCakes.com and their 15 year anniversary selling online. That is quite an accomplishment and we celebrate with them! Enjoy the article.

CASTLE ROCK, Colo., Feb 03, 2010 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ —- This year marks the 15th anniversary of Colorado-based CoffeeCakes.com, one of the first Internet retailers to offer high-quality gourmet gift items online. To celebrate its fifteen year milestone, CoffeeCakes.com will offer select anniversary-priced coffeecakes for $15 throughout the remainder of 2010 as well as free shipping on any order within Colorado.

In 1995, CoffeeCakes.com started as an Internet cafe (the first of its kind in Colorado). Realizing that the Internet offered incredible opportunities in the marketplace, Sherry Comes, the company’s founder, decided to move her business exclusively online. Applying her many years of IT consulting expertise to her new entrepreneurial venture, Comes has grown her online store into the profitable entity it is today.

In the fifteen years since the company’s inception, Comes has experienced the usual challenges of running a small business while maintaining a full-time career. Over the years, the company has revamped its website for Search Engine Optimization, taken the functions of fulfillment, inventory and warehousing in-house, and streamlined its order management, inventory control, and shipping processes.

Since the early years, CoffeeCakes.com has greatly expanded its product line (which initially centered on coffeecakes) to include travel mugs, teapots, and items such as coffee presses and tea samplers. “In the fifteen years since I founded the company, I have seen a huge change in customer shopping patterns,” Comes said. “My customers are super-savvy Internet shoppers. They expect high-touch customer service and a broad and appealing range of products.”

For Valentine’s Day, the company is introducing its new line of “Chocolate Surprise Squares” and “Chocolate Bliss Gourmet” gift baskets that can be shipped anywhere within the US and Canada.

The company plans to launch a sister web site sometime in 2010 that will focus on an even wider range of gift items spanning children’s wear to home decor.

To place an order, visit www.CoffeeCakes.com or call 1-800-830-2696.

About CoffeeCakes.com

CoffeeCakes.com (www.coffeecakes.com) is a privately-held company that markets specialty food and gourmet gift items exclusively on the Internet. Founded in 1995, the company is headquartered in Castle Rock, Colorado. CoffeeCakes.com’s product line includes corporate gifts, specialty gift baskets, coffeecakes and other cakes, tea samplers, travel mugs and products to enhance the enjoyment of coffee and tea.

SOURCE CoffeeCakes.com

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New Yahoo! Store Book features Colorado Web Solutions

Posted on September 10th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Last week a new book on Yahoo! Stores was released and Colorado Web Solutions was one of the selected few featured Yahoo Store designers. The book is called Yahoo Income: How Anyone of Any Age, Location, And/Or Background Can Build a Highly Profitable Online Business with Yahoo and was written by Sharon L. Cohen.

In addition to featuring Colorado Web Solutions, the book also featured three of our clients. Congratulations to CoffeeCakes.com, PopDeluxe.net and ChildrensOrganizers.com for wonderful reviews.

If you would like to purchase a copy of this book, please click here to buy it directly from Amazon.com

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CoffeeCakes.com Featured in Internet Retailer

Posted on June 23rd, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

This article was published this week about Colorado Web Solutions’ (www.coloradowebsolutions.com) client CoffeeCakes.com. The article was published in Internet Retailer and can be found here.

CoffeeCakes.com reluctantly redesigns its site and boosts traffic 70%

After 14 years with its original site design, CoffeeCakes.com recently overhauled its site. The dramatic results have convinced the e-retailer not to wait so long for the next redesign.

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CWS Client UsaBrideWeddings.com Featured

Posted on May 22nd, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Colorado Web Solutions is proud to present an article to you regarding one of our clients, UsaBrideWeddings.com.

Bridal Fashion News! USABride is the hidden jewel for wedding accessories

USABride, A Beverly, MA-based company that has been going strong for more than 13 years may be a bit overlooked in our area because it is on-line based. However, I must say, they have the best deals around, ladies! Gorgeous and affordable Couture wedding tiaras and headpieces, veils, jewelry, combs and pins, and sooooo much more! Some tiaras are even less than $50, and are designed with Swarovski Crystals, Austrian Rhinestones, and Freshwater Pearls!

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