Yahoo! Review: Value (1.5 stars)

Costs a Lot More Than It's Worth

Overall, the value is poor considering how few built-in tools you get outside e-commerce.  It costs well above average if you account for the transaction fees. Not only are the monthly fees a little high (from $39.95-$299.95), there are also transaction fees on every sale made through your site (0.75% - 1.5%). The percentage varies based on your package. There is also a set-up fee of $50, though at the time of the review, it was being waived as a promotion.

No Free Trial

There is also no free trial to allow you to tinker with the software. This is probably because it’s not the easiest builder to use, so they don’t want to highlight the fact.

Lots of Room to Expand

They do allow unlimited products and provide plenty of disk storage (20GB) on all three of the different packages, unlimited products, 1000 email addresses, and a large amount of bandwidth for doing data transfers (500 GB). This gives you plenty of room to expand. 

A Few Freebies

Merchant Solutions comes with free advertising credits that save you money when you set up your website's promotional campaign. Yahoo also provides a free domain name. Telephone support is also free. And there are also no contracts or hidden costs (unless you count the transaction fees!).

The Differences Between the Packages

The only major difference between the 3 packages other than the monthly price and transaction fee is that the Standard and Professional packages both get a few extra features including more detailed statistics, the option to offer gift certificates, a coupon manager, and a few other tidbits.

Related Links

• smallbusiness.yahoo.com