Introducing the Yahoo! Store Promotion Manager

Posted on September 17th, 2009 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

Have you ever wished that your Yahoo! Store’s coupon manager was a little more robust? I would assume that if you have a Yahoo! Store that does any sort of promotional marketing your answer is YES!

Well, we have the perfect service for you now!

I am very happy to announce that Colorado Web Solutions has partnered with a brand new service called the “Promo Manager“. The Promo Manager is one of the  most advanced technologies we’ve seen for Yahoo! Stores in quite a while. Take everything you know about Yahoo! Stores limited coupon and promotions functionality and throw it out the window. This is a whole new ball game. Yahoo! Merchant Solutions recently upgraded their coupons, but this is leaps and bounds above the built in technology.

Imagine being able to quickly and effortlessly offer a campaign that offers “Happy Hour Specials”. Let’s say you want to offer your customers a 10% discount on everything they purchase between 10 am and 2 pm on Tuesdays. You can do that! How about offering free shipping on certain days? You can do that too! Want to reward local customers? How about setting up a promotion where all orders shipping to your home state get a free hat with their order? You can also do that!

I could go on and on about the different types of promotions you can run, but I think you get the picture. Your creativity is your only limitation with this new tool.

The tool is broken down into two main categories: Conditions and Rewards.

Here’s a quick rundown of the conditions you can set to cause a reward:

• Cart Contents – Offer promotions based on an ID, code, name, category, price, sale price, or choose any of 5 custom variables unique to your store. Specify what items need to be purchased in order to qualify for the promotion.
• Total Value of Cart – Offer promotions that are based on the total value of items in a shopper’s cart. Specify if the total must be greater than, less than, or equal to a certain value as well as whether the cart total includes Yahoo’s coupons.
• Date, Time, or Day of the Week – Offer promotions based on a calendar date or range of dates, time of day or time range, day of week or range of days.
• Shipping Address – Offer promotions based on a zip code, range of zip codes, zip code prefix, state or country.
• Discount Code – Generate discount codes that customers can enter to receive the promotion you’ve created. This feature is great if you have a newsletter or other marketing materials you can promote the discount code in.

On the flip side, here’s the run down of the reward options when customers meet a condition from above:

• Free or Discounted Individual Item(s) – Set a discount or give any free individual item or items to your customers if the appropriate conditions are met. Discounted or free item(s) can be determined by ID, code, name, price, sale price, or any of 5 unique custom variables.
• Free or Discounted Item(s) From a Category – If the appropriate conditions are met, give free or discounted individual item(s) to your customers from a specific group of items.
• Free Shipping – Offer free shipping to your customers if the approprite conditions are met. Control which shipping method is to be used for free shipping.
• Discount Off Total Order Amount – Give a discount on the total order amount if the appropriate conditions are met. Set discounts based on a dollar amount or percentage.

It doesn’t stop there though! Promo Manager has also built in a robust exemption engine with the following features:

• Block Items – Select certain items and block them from having the promotions you created apply. Base your exemptions on an ID, code, name, category, price, sale price, or choose any of 5 custom variables unique to your store.
• Block Groups of Items – Select groups of items to block from your promotion.

As you can see, this is an incredible upgrade for Yahoo! Stores.

Get ready for the holidays now! Start planning your promotions, dream up fun ones, Promo Manager will run it perfectly for you. This tool has been heavilly tested and was built in cooperation with Yahoo! Merchant Solutions for the better part of a year. It’s ready for you to thrive with.

If you would like to learn more about the Promo Manager offered through Colorado Web Solutions, please visit http://www.coloradowebsolutions.com/yahoo-store-promotions-manager.html

If you are already ready to sign up or have questions that are not answered on our site, please visit http://www.coloradowebsolutions.com/contact-promotion-manager-request.html and we will have a member of the team get in touch with you immediately.

As you can see, I’m very excited about this new tool!

Have a great day everyone and gets those Yahoo Store promotions and coupons rolling!