Alert Shoppers who are running on empty

With our 6/28 release we have fixed many of the known issues for Checkout Manager such as the Minimum quantity not being enforced; check out the known issues list for a full list of resolved issues. There is also a small enhancement hidden away on the Advanced Settings page that allows you to customize the empty cart message (when shoppers go to checkout without any items).

I believe the merchant that requested this wanted something more personalized for their store—“Your heart may be full, but your cart is empty”. I did some quick testing of the feature and not only can you add text for your message, but the field (like many others in Checkout Manager) also accepts HTML. Some quick thoughts on possible uses for this feature:

• Customize your empty cart message using CSS so it stands out.
• Include images to call more attention to no items in the cart.
• Include links to a coupon page, direct shoppers to a best sellers page, or even a “why shop from us” page if the shopper is trying to see if your checkout looks trustworthy.

Feel free to use my empty cart haiku or submit your own to the blog:

Paul Boisvert
Yahoo! Small Business

New feature: Sitemap for your store

As part of our continuous effort to help our merchants succeed online, we are happy to introduce a new feature.  Starting 6/28, you will be able to create a Sitemap file for your store.

What is it?

Residing in the root level of your domain, the Sitemap file contains all pages in your store that were created using the Store Editor.  This includes all products, sections and content pages.  Along with the page URLs, the Sitemap file also contains information on when the file was last updated.

How will it help?

The Sitemap file is used to provide information to search engines in an effort to optimize the site indexing process.  Along with informing the crawlers of all pages within your store, the Sitemap file also reports the time at which the last set of changes took place.

Once the Sitemap file is enabled on the Search Engines page, merchants will also be able to proactively inform search engines about pages in their store by submitting their Sitemap file to programs such as Google Sitemaps.

To further support the benefits of the Google Sitemaps program, we will also be introducing a feature also found on the Search Engines page that allows merchants to verify ownership of their stores with Google.  Once ownership has been verified, merchants will then be able to access additional tools and features from their Google Sitemaps console.

What do I need to do?

Participation is easy. Both of these opt-in features will be accessible from the “Search Engines” link within the Store Manager.  Once the feature is enabled, a Sitemap file will be generated every time the Store Editor is published.

For merchants wishing to participate with the Google Sitemaps program, information can be found at: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps

We are very committed to providing you with tools that will make you succeed online, and we encourage you try out this new feature.

Duncan Shen
Yahoo! Small Business

For more information about the Sitemap feature, consult the Sitemap help available on 6/28/06.

Merchant Question: Vacation All I Ever Wanted, Vacation Had to Get Away

I recently received the following question from a merchant:

I run a Yahoo store that is still small enough to be in my home. I anticipate taking it into a real office space and hiring employees within 2 years. On average, [I receive] about 12 orders per day.

In the past our store when we went on vacation we put a vacation notice on our store, stating that “we are away, but the orders will be filled and shipped on xyz date” (3 or 4 days after we returned from vacation).

But now our store is really starting to take off, and with our increasing number of orders, we’re not sure what to do! If we close the store outright for the 10 days we’re away, we’re afraid it will hurt our business and our reputation. If we put up the usual vacation notice, we’re afraid we’ll be buried in orders when we return from vacation! We don’t have anybody who can take over our business while we’re away (it is complicated by the fact that it is in our house — and the huge learning curve to train somebody in all of our products and procedures).

What should we do during this successful but stressful growth period? What do other people with fledgling businesses do?

Good question with many implications regardless of how you approach the problem. The good news is it is better to have the problem of too many orders than not enough. The bad news is more orders means you need to be cautious in how you handle longer order fulfillment times—instead of angering a few, you could have a mob spreading bad word of mouth. So how do you approach the problem?

Vacation Tactics:

Our merchant mentioned a few approaches and I’ll add a third:

• Stop taking orders
• Take orders but notify of longer order fulfillment times
• Hire a part-time temporary employee

Let’s do a quick run down of these:

• Stop taking orders: As the merchant feared, not taking orders while on vacation sends one signal—we are a small operation and we close for vacation rather than take orders. Maybe that is a message you want to send if you only want your store to stay small with a limited customer base. If you want to project the image of a larger store where customers come first, think twice before taking this approach.
• Take orders but warn of longer order delivery times: This is only an option if you are taking short vacations. While online shoppers do factor in a longer delivery time in their purchase decision (rather than buying local if possible), the popularity of overnight and second day shipping options indicates that customers often times want things right away. Be very careful how you message such a delay if you chose this approach. At a minimum set the Availability field for products to a longer time and add a note to your checkout pages informing customers of the delay in filling the order. Failure to warn customers could lead to chargebacks if you collect funds well before shipping or could lead customers to give bad reviews or word of mouth about your store. Set auto-responders for email addresses customers may use and change the message for your business answering machine to inform customers of the delay. If you can check email while away to answer any angry customers, you may head off any problems.
• Hire a part-time employee: Obviously this option is the most involved. It is also complicated by our merchant running the business out of the home. You wouldn’t hire an unknown person and entrust them with your business and your home too. Eventually though, your business may outgrow your ability to fill orders. Consider hiring a trustworthy family member, neighbor, or friend to fill in while on vacation. A recently retired person, stay-at-home mom with school age children, or a college student on summer vacation may be excited at the chance to do some short-term part-time work. The only caution against hiring family or friends is if they cannot perform, you have to be able to let them go in a way that hopefully won’t damage your long-term relationship. Pitch it to them as very short-term fill in work. If they are able to do the work, you can always ask them again. If you are worried about providing access to your home, see if you can move your products, shipping materials, and computer into a garage or other out-building while away.

Don’t Arrest Your Business Getting Rest

If you are facing this problem in the short term, then the second option (take orders but warn customers) would seem to pose the least risk to your business. You can take orders and warn customers of the delay, leaving it up to them to complete the order and acknowledge the delayed arrival. Long term though, this strategy may hinder your growth.

Think about franchises. They grow because they not only have a solid business plan, but also have repeatable processes that can, with training, be performed by anyone. You should be able to train people to take over picking, packing, and shipping orders. You can also with more time train people to answer phones for product inquiries, review orders for fraud and process them, and even make updates to your store. Certainly some of these will take more training than others, but the point here is to start small, and start early. You get a chance to see if a part-time employee can do the tasks needed to run your store for a brief time without being gone—after all, you want to relax while away and not worry (full time) about your store.

More important, having a part-time worker, even a few hours a week, will allow you to forego the mundane tasks, and focus on more important aspects that only you are qualified to do—brainstorm, research, plan, and implement various strategies to increase traffic, increase conversion rates, increase order size, and really accelerate the growth of your business.

Paul Boisvert
Yahoo! Small Business

More Resources

• Small Business Administration—can help with employment issues including finding temporary employees
• Solid Cactus Blog post on taking your first vacation
• Webmaster World Forums post on taking vacation

Merchant Question—“Ship” is a Four Letter Word Sometimes

A merchant sent in this question recently:

What is the best way to deal with a customer who orders using an incomplete address (for example, a work address at a large building and they don’t include the floor number or company name) and then they contact you all mad that they haven’t gotten their order? The customer of course wants the store to foot the bill for a replacement order.

Shipping. It can literally make or break your business. Offer free shipping for orders over a certain dollar amount, and your average order size may jump way up. However, if you don’t have specific shipping policies outlined, choose the wrong shipping options, or don’t take time to get use accurate weight and package sizes, you may be undercharging buyers for shipping and/or facing chargebacks that cut into your profits. So how do you avoid issues like the one described above? I can offer a few tips, but in reality, there may be no 100% solution.

Keep in mind with the situation above, the shopper may feel more secure sending the package to a business address.

Tips to Avoid (or, More Likely, Mitigate) Delivery Issues

• Add extra fields for business addresses such as company name to your checkout. Spell out in clear terms that shoppers must provide the company name and mailstop in order to ship to a business address if that is your policy.
• Follow up with the customer by email or phone if the address looks incomplete for a business address. While this may take some time, you may make a favorable impression with the customer by showing concern for the safe arrival of the order. You can use the “map” link appearing beneath the shipping address in the Order Manager to look up an address in Yahoo! Maps.
• Ship your package with a carrier that offers email notifications to both you and the buyer when the package is shipped, delivered, or when the carrier is having problems with the delivery. This allows you and the buyer to quickly resolve the problem before you have to reship the order.
• Require a signature for delivery. If you can prove the item was delivered by having a signature, then the shopper’s issue with your delivery of the order, becomes an issue for the shopper to take up with the mail room at their company. This may cost extra for some carriers, but if the value of the order is large enough, it may give you more peace of mind. Sometimes just using a service that allows for tracking will avoid this problem altogether because you can clearly show when a delivery was made, who it was delivered to, and at what address.
• Refuse delivery to business addresses. While this may require some research if reviewing manually, some carriers may have tools that can tell if an address is commercial or residential. If delivery to business addresses pose a consistent problem for you, or if an order is large enough to cause concern, contact the buyer and ask for another shipping address. Remember though that buyers may prefer shipping to a business address.

Even with extra measures in place, such issues may still arise. How you deal with them can also, (perhaps even more so), impact your business in the long term.

When Things Go Wrong

• Put it in writing. Outline your shipping policies in detail so you can reference them to customers that may have issues. Review shipping policies of stores that have been around for some time. Their policies will likely cover cases you may face in the future. Adopt those policies that make sense to you, but adapt them so they make sense to your shoppers. You may wish to consult a lawyer to determine if your policies will stand up to a legal challenge.
• Review each case individually. While your policies may be crystal clear, it may make sense to review each case individually. In some cases, the customer may truly not be at fault. If the carrier loses the package, you may be able to recover costs from the carrier. You also will come off as more reasonable if you are willing to talk with shoppers with an issue and come to an amicable agreement. Remember that winning by not refunding a $20 order may cost you a hundred fold in bad word of mouth.
• Factor some loss into your business planning. You may want to consider shipping losses to be similar to fraud where you can plan and implement ways to reduce them, but you may never get rid of it. How hard you dispute with buyers should be determined by your willingness (and financial ability) to accept some losses, the likelihood that the buyer may issue a chargeback, the likelihood you may win the chargeback, and how much negative impact to your company’s name may happen if the shopper feels they have been “cheated”.

This does not mean you should roll over when challenged, nor does it mean you should battle each case knowing you are in the right. Rather, you should take all reasonable steps to prevent these issues before they occur, and if they do, take a pragmatic approach to finding a resolution. The same customer you could make into an enemy by fighting could be turned into a loyal customer that evangelizes your company to many others because you took the time to find a reasonable solution.

Sound off, merchants. I know some of you may have dealt with shipping issues. Post your take on dealing with shipping issues in the comments.

Paul Boisvert
Yahoo! Small Business