Deep in the recession, E-Tailers are looking for creative and cost effective ways to boost sales. Boosting conversions from your existing site traffic costs virtually nothing, yet is incredibly effective.
Here are some tips to help you get started:
1) Identify known issues with your existing Yahoo! Store, especially those that affect usability
2) Identify at least 5 sites that your company wants to be like
3) Identify at least 2 competitors that are doing a good job
4) Interview Yahoo! Store Designers that offer consultation services as well as graphic design and implementation. Find the right fit for your company by looking for someone that makes you feel comfortable, has an understanding of e-commerce, and is willing to take the time to understand your unique needs.
5) Choose a budget for your redesign and share that with your consultant
By following these tips, your redesign process will be significantly easier at the onset for both you and your chosen Designer / Developer. It is important that you have identified goals for your redesign, prior to designing the mockups. Your Designer will need to know what you are looking for, otherwise you will end up with several mockups that do not impress you and a Designer thinking that you're a difficult client.
Finding the right fit with your Designer / Developer is also a key factor in your long term success. Choosing someone because they offer the lowest price is never a winning strategy. Does your Designer / Developer work alone? Do he have a physical office? These are key questions that you must address long before the first well placed pixel is formed.
Once your site has been redesigned, what work will you, the Store Owner, need to do? That all depends on what was designed. If your new design calls for the display of information that is not currently available on the site, or that information must now be displayed in certain fields in the Catalog Manager, then you will have some merchandising to do. The more work you do merchandising your store, the more unique and useful your content will be. Google will reward you for this with higher placement in the search engine results pages.
