Customer Reviews

Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies

5 star:		(71)
4 star:		(10)
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1 star:		(4)

 

 

First of all, let me start by saying that I have been using Yahoo Store since 1998, and have run an ecommerce business full time since 1999, when I quit my day job.

I picked up a copy of this book to give to a friend who was starting up a Yahoo Merchant Solutions site to sell online. I figured it would be a good way to give them a reference guide so that they wouldn't have to ask me 10 million questions about how to add a new product, or how to upload a photo, etc.

I bought the book without even looking inside. But I started flipping through it the day before I was going to give the book away. Once I realized how great the book was, I ended up keeping it and buying a different copy for my friend!

This book covers all the basics for people who don't know much about getting started.

But more importantly, it has a ton of really great high level strategies and tactics that even someone like me who has been using Yahoo Store for almost 10 years can use.

In fact, one specific part of the book about the cross selling feature made me realize I was approaching cross selling all wrong.

I spent about two hours making some changes to my Yahoo Store, and the store made an additional $10,387.42 in cross sells in the 90 days following those changes. (Yes, that's a real number. Any Yahoo Store will run a simple report to look it up, and that's what I just did.)

That's just ONE thing I learned from the book. I have a list of 16 other changes that I am starting to implement because of what I learned.

Ideas like optimizing my photos better, creating more buyer guides, improving my About Us page, improving the checkout pages, etc. And I haven't even re-read the book yet.

In summary: This book is not just for beginners! You're going to find good stuff in it even if you're a pro.

Rob Snell, you are my Yahoo Store hero. Thank you for writing this book.

I have been a yahoo store owner since 1997 and I feel that I know Yahoo store pretty well, but I still made myself read Rob Snell's book Yahoo Store for Dummies from cover to cover and I found information that I didn't even know existed. Needless to say I implemented some of the tips and tricks right away.

Chapter 15 on customizing the check-out page is invaluable for lowering your shopping cart abandonment rate. Chapter 17 on driving traffic that converts, where Rob does his magic with pulling the keywords from within Yahoo's data to convert them into Google Adwords campaign. He teaches you to use the data that you already have and how to mine these keywords effectively.

I'm still working my way through the book and adding in features like cross sell at check-out. I could go on and on about what a wonderful resource book it is, but you have to read the book for yourself, I'm not going to share all his secrets in this review.

Shirley Tan
[...]

The idea of getting involved in a Yahoo! business has been both exciting and overwhelming, however Rob's book has provided a wealth of information. Besides helping to better understand the intricacies of a Yahoo! business, this book provides a comprehensive checklist to ensure that you don't miss any steps in the process of starting your own store, maintaining it, and growing it... Thanks!

Have operated a Yahoo store for 7 years and although I feel fairly versed in the ins and outs of the Yahoo Platform was glad to have a book that gives me a complete overview of how to operate, maintain, and improve our sites. This is a great book for beginners and mature owners; it can be used as a reference guide for what you have forgotten and what you have not yet learned. To me Robs keyword secrets and data mining is the most important section, I have used it to lower my CPC on keywords by using terms the customer actually buys with. By using his techniques I have found some cheaper, yet more relevant keywords that are bringing in sales and have discarded some broader keywords that cost a lot money but did very little to improve my bottom line. I was very pleased with his book and keep it by my computer where I am always looking through it as a great reference guide, my recommendation is buy it if you have a Yahoo store, will make your business life a lot easier and more profitable.

One would expect that a "For Dummies" book would have lots of straight-forward information about the subject matter, as this one does. But the added bonus are the witty insights and personal touches that the author shares to bring you close and make you comfortable with the subject. One gets the impression that, "Hey, maybe if this guy from Mississippi can master this and make some money, so can I!"

Rob Snell has obviously gone all-out to make the reader profitable. This isn't just a book of basics that leaves the reader somewhat short of fully equipped. Instead, even an experienced Yahoo store owner can page through the book and pick up advanced profitability tips that can be implemented immediately.

The layout is outstanding. Besides providing a information that can be used in a step-by-step manner, it lends itself to usefulness as a follow-up reference. From investigation into what a Yahoo store is all about, through the planning and building process, right up to fine tuning profitability, this book has it all. Even the index is impressive--very comprehensive. That is extremely useful when you've read the book and want to refer back to a specific feature or control.

I would recommend anyone considering a Yahoo store start by consuming this book. If you already have a Yahoo store, don't be put off by the "For Dummies" moniker--there is much information in here to make experienced owners smarter and more profitable.

Being an owner of Yahoo stores for over 5 Years, working on templates , functions and paying thousands of dollars yearly from outside developers for improvements, design work, better functions and other (over $40,000.00!). This book from Rob Snell has already saved us thousands and made us thousands of dollars. The explains in plain english about templates, design, functions, search engines, and the hidden functions that you must be aware of! There are alot of easy tweaks and information galore that will help every Yahoo store owner. We have purchased all the other books out their, but nothing comes close! The books references & referals are all genuine! FYI: You do not need to be a dummy for this book! Hats off to Rob Snell and his outstanding book!

I've been with Yahoo Stores for several years now and am responsible for multiple sites. I'm also responsible for multiple other sites that aren't Yahoo Stores. Many lessons learned in this book will easilly translate over to my non Yahoo Store web sites.

I'm also a regular attendee to the SES shows. I could have saved a few thousand dollars and bought the book instead. Realistically, the book is certainly a benefit to Yahoo Store owners, but he has a whole section, 4 chapters, that deal with Internet Marketing. For the price, even if you don't own or plan on opening a Yahoo Store, you need this book!

I'm not much of a review person. This is the first Amazon review I've ever written. But I received this book and put it to use the day after I bought it. Real world tips and real world examples. Rob doesn't talk to me like I'm some dummy but he doesn't talk over me either. For example, page 258 - "Digging keywords out of your orders." - Another trick to help me find converting keywords. I was already aware of the search results trick and use it often. Here is another method for me to obtain those hard to find, converting keywords. And it was simple!! Why didn't I think of that before??

Rob Snell..... You Rock Dude!

Rob Snell's book is excellent! I am working to help set-up ani Amazon store for Mahrwood Press and this book has been a tremendous help. It is well-written and gives examples.

This book is not about starting a Yahoo business, although it certainly provides all you neeed to do that. It is more about:

1) Why you should use the Yahoo Store Editor to build your store instead of html (I was convinced, and switched my store over).
2) How to properly design an online store.

Rob goes deeply into the proper construction and design of the store, right down to what should be on product pages vs category pages, techniques for capitalizing on your best movers, and more.

If you have an online store, Yahoo or otherwise, you owe it to yourself to pick up this book. I guarantee you will read it like I did, pencil in hand, circling and underlining like crazy all the gems you want to use for your own site.

Very highly recommended. We plan to use Rob's techniques on all of our sites. We re-built one very staid industrial equipment site, and re-launched on August 1.

Sales are up by over 40% and still increasing.

[...]

A couple years ago when I first started my Yahoo Store, I quickly realized there were only a handful of experts that knew the ways to drive traffic and more importantly SALES CONVERSIONS to an ecommerce store. Rob Snell is one of these people. I religiously followed each tidbit of information in his blog to grow my store.

His book takes all of his blog posts plus piles more of information and lays out a roadmap for success. Sure there are other books out there that detail how to tweak the RTML (Yahoo's Store Code) platform or how get sales data out of your Store Manager; But, Starting a Yahoo! Business For Dummies ties it all together.

There is a bunch of reference data for the novice as well as some great tricks for the Yahoo Store experts. Everything from the magic edit button to search engine optimization for the Yahoo Store is included in this book.

One of the best nuggets that Mr. Snell highlights in his book is what I would summarize as 'prioritized optimization'. Translation - figure out what sells and develop a platform that can exploit the heck out of your unique value proposition.

I would highly recommend this book for the novice and the experienced Yahoo Store owner that want to improve their conversion rate in their store.