CNET blog features Yahoo! merchants

Yahoo! merchants Sarah Headrick and Sarah Rivera of Custom Made for Kids, who sell personalized children’s books, were recently featured in a CNET.com blog article that looked at women and online entrepreneurship. The authors and internet retailers shared their thoughts about the benefits of an online store and the ordering process, and how these are well-suited to their business needs. Check it out to learn more about their experience, and the ways in which they’ve used online tools and information to their advantage.

Taking a moment to stop by the Custom Made for Kids site and checking out their product’s virtual tour is also well worth the time, even if you’re not looking for a children’s book. Here, customers can enter a few custom details and then preview the first three pages of The First Adventures of Incredible You, allowing them to see the quality of the book and how it uses their information. Including a virtual tour for one or more of your store’s key products is a great way to give customers an in-depth look at what they’re ordering and can turn store visitors into buyers, by adding value to the shopping experience that goes beyond what even good product images and detailed descriptions can provide.

Jennifer Farwell
Yahoo! Small Business

Five Merchants Share Their Stories on Video

Just a heads up to merchants that we recently launched Inspiration Video Profiles for our Small Business News & Resources section. In these short videos, five successful Yahoo! merchants provide some insight into their beginnings, their challenges, and some advice for merchants considering starting an online retail venture. I would recommend the videos to any merchant thinking about how to start or even how to take their business to the next level.

Here’s a run-down of the merchants and videos:

• Au-Co Mai of emitations.com, retailer of sterling silver jewelry and celebrity jewelry, talks about her beginnings with internet retailing and the importance of listening to customers. Watch the video.
• Karen McMasters of barebabies.com, retailer of high-end baby strollers and products, chats about getting started and how her sales have grown since she started. Watch the video.
• Maia Haag of I See Me Inc., retailer of personalized children’s books, discusses the benefits and challenges of running a home-based business. Watch the video.
• Diana Nelson of Kazoo & Company, retailer of educational children’s toys, games and puzzles, speaks about how she takes care of customers and also tries to have fun to stave off career burn-out. Watch the video.
• Alan Hutchinson of HTMarket.com, retailer of home theater seating, furniture and equipment, talks about how he got started and to follow your passions. Watch the video.

The videos show that while each merchant really is unique, they all share the same entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to turn their ideas into a reality.

Paul Boisvert
Yahoo! Small Business

Quick Thoughts on Internet Retailer

My notebook is full of great notes I jotted down from sessions and discussions I had at Internet Retailer. I will be putting up some posts on various topics and insights from the conference but for now I just wanted to throw out some quick thoughts:

If you don’t have a lot of money, you can’t lose a lot of money–Jim McCann, keynote speaker and founder of 1-800-flowers.com

Jim McCann gave an incredibly interesting keynote address about how he has grown a small flower shop business into a multi-channel, multi-market, business approaching $1 billion in sales. I liked this idea because I think it represents the type of bold entrepreneurial spirit I see in some of our successful Yahoo! store merchants. Often times the merchants seeing the biggest gains are the ones placing the biggest bets. He also talked about thinking like a small company and always innovating.

Venky Shankar gave an informative presentation on metrics that matter for retailers. One statistic he listed was that 70% of people 15-34 are on social networks (such as MySpace, Facebook, etc) and that 40% of those using social networks used them to learn about a brand or product. If the 15-34 year old demographic makes up a sizable portion of your customer base, you may wish to invest some time in SNO (social network optimization). What can you do to connect to these buyers and become an asset or destination for these communities?

Maris Daugherty presented on using trends to influence purchase decisions. She talked about the three main types of shoppers: info seeking, conquerors (those on a mission to buy), and impulse shoppers. How does your site speak to these groups? Do you have original and comprehensive product data (description, specs, buyer’s guides, etc) to be the one source of authoritative information on a product or brand? If not, what are you doing to get there? With conquerors, is your site optimized to allow for the quickest access to a specific product through navigation or landing page targeting for search marketing? If not, how can you remove barriers to a quick and worry-free purchase process. With impulse shoppers, are you cross-selling products in product pages, checkout, packaging products together to drive impulse purchases? There may be (and likely are) stores that have all three types of buyers so the trick here seems to be understanding the percentages, and how each is driving revenue so you can maximize your tactics for the most profitable segment.

I’ll be sure to pass along other observations I found interesting from the show in the coming weeks.

Paul Boisvert
Yahoo! Small Business

Up next: Yahoo! Merchant Solutions post-conference party report

FlyingPeas Adds Featured Customers as well as Featured Products

The following post contains excerpts of an interview I did with Terra Malcom Carmichael regarding her store, FlyingPeas.com. Terra’s store sells “hip” and high-quality baby products, but more than the funny t-shirts or funny bibs (or even the great custom design), what caught my eye and the subject of this post, is her page that features friends and customers—Yummy Mommies. I contacted Terra and asked her some questions about how Yummy Mommies fits in with her store.

Tell me about FlyingPeas? When and why did you start the business?

I love babies and all the fun products that come with them. I’ve done my share of buying baby gifts (as well as for my own little men), and while shopping, I’ve often found that most of the cool products weren’t very high quality, and the high quality products were boring (baby blue, green or pink). On the rare occasion that I found a product that met my “hip and high quality standards,” I was ecstatic. So I started FlyingPeas in an attempt to make it easier for people to find products that fall at the intersection of “hip” and “high quality.”

Where did you get the idea for Yummy Mommies?

Many first time moms have no clue what to get. We don’t know WHAT to get, HOW MANY to get or WHEN to get baby products when we are pregnant for the first time. And even once we are seasoned moms, we sometimes just want to hear what products others like or have had success with. So, I created Yummy Mommies as a place for people to choose and display their favorite products for all the world to see (and buy!).

Also, the fashion industry has realized that women don’t want to wear “moomoos” just because they are pregnant. So, along with this realization, we have more options – and options that help us wear our bellies with pride. I mean, who would have ever guessed 10 years ago that we’d pay $200 for a pair of jeans we’d fit into for 4 months?! Not me. But it’s happening all over – and it’s because we want to look good… particularly when we have a big ol’ belly and people are going to be looking more often! So… my friends and customers are yummy, especially because they are mommies or mommies-to-be.

The Yummy Mommies section at FlyingPeas.com

What has the response been like so far? Tell me how this helps drive traffic and sales for your site?

I can tell you that it’s the number one viewed page on my site but I don’t know how many sales come from this page…. It’s more of a fun page to give my site more personality.

How are you promoting this idea in your store or offline?

I send out a newsletter each month featuring a yummy mommy of the month as well as other new products and specials. I’m to the point now where people are submitting their friends – and even wives - to be yummy mommies.

How are the products chosen that are displayed? Are these the chosen person’s favorites or things they have bought in the past?

These products can be things they’ve purchased in the past, experienced in the past or even just things they like.

Any chance of a Yummy Daddies category coming soon?

Yummy Daddies doesn’t roll off the tongue as well, but I absolutely think there’s something there! Be on the lookout for this very soon!

My thanks to Terra for sharing those insights with other Yahoo! merchants. So the question to ask yourself is “Would this work for my business?” Pet store owners could have featured pooches. A garden product store could post photos of the “garden of the week/month”. Your customers get a chance to show off their passions or interests. You get to build a sense of community and encourage others to pass along your address as a destination. And all of that traffic can hopefully lead to more inbound links to boost your search rankings or hopefully boost your revenue with new customers or repeat sales.

Paul Boisvert
Yahoo! Small Business