In celebration of National Small Business Week, I want to share some of the things Yahoo Small Business is doing to help your business behind the scenes. Recently, I had the privilege of visiting Capitol Hill to discuss and share our knowledge about the incredible power that small businesses have to drive our economy. My goal was to ensure that everyone I spoke with understood the vital role of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) not only in their local economies, but also on the Internet, and to arm these policymakers with information useful to their legislative decision-making.
My trip included a panel discussion, “The Economic Impact of the Internet,” organized by the Internet Association and attended by staff from key House and Senate offices. I was joined by other panelists from Intuit, Uber, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I also met with top staff on the New Democrat Coalition’s Task Force on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and then spent an afternoon in one-on-one meetings with legislative aides and counsels to a variety of members of Congress who have a strong interest in the SMB space. We discussed what their offices and respective states are doing to aid SMBs and how Yahoo Small Business helps small businesses in communities across the country get online, reach more customers, and succeed. Then, I spent another full day on the Hill meeting with the staff of representatives who sit on the House and Senate Small Business Committees.
I left exhausted, but very secure in the knowledge that the folks on the Hill were working hard to create growth opportunities for SMBs, and they were very excited about working with Yahoo Small Business to help their constituents blaze online trails.
The Yahoo Small Business team is fast approaching a very exciting next step for our team and our customers. As you know, we’ll be transitioning at the end of this year to stand on our own two feet as an independent company. With that comes the unique opportunity to redefine our brand and name.
In the work of a marketer, there are few projects as exciting as this! It’s a huge challenge to look with new eyes at the current landscape, the customers served, and our strategy for future growth, and to roll all that information into a new identity.
To tackle this, in partnership with a strategic branding company, we’ve begun to break down the attributes and personality that we want our new name and brand to convey. We’ve worked closely with our cross-functional team to better focus our own perceptions, and we will expand that in the coming weeks to gather input from customers and partners as we quickly move through this process.
We’re excited to update you on our progress and look forward to sharing the new brand with you this summer. In the meantime, if you have thoughts on this topic, you can reach me, and the team responsible, at ysb-rebrand@yahoo-inc.com.
Some of our team at a recent brand strategy meeting.
Design A new responsive mobile template named ‘Pixel’ has been added to the Theme Gallery.
Merchant Solutions
Features Added an adaptive mobile-friendly template for all accounts. The new template can be configured from the Variables page of the Store Editor as well as a new ‘Mobile Storefront’ link under the Edit column of the Store Control Panel.
Maintenance Resolved an issue that would cause a ‘connection reset’ error during checkout in specific circumstances.
Completed scheduled maintenance required to maintain PCI compliance and ensure the safety of your data.
Commerce Central
Google Shopping Target country now allows only one selection at a time to comply with Google’s campaign limits.
We are excited to announce Yahoo Merchant Solutions’ adaptive mobile storefronts.
Starting today, all small business owners using Yahoo Merchant Solutions – from those in the Internet Retailer Top 500 to those just starting to grow their businesses – have available a new, adaptive mobile-optimized storefront.
This mobile storefront launches in addition to their existing web/desktop storefront, with no additional cost or action from our merchants. The new storefront works off the same catalog data as the web store, and allows for the mobile and web experiences to be optimized separately. Device optimized design allows merchants to have more control over layout elements such as positioning of call-to-action buttons and, importantly, site speed, as they can create pages that are optimized to load faster.
While this launch is automatic for all stores across the platform, each mobile storefront is individually customizable, and merchants have the option to disable at any time. Elements of branding, like the store logo, will automatically display upon the mobile storefront. Merchants can further tailor the mobile experience by customizing key style elements such as banners, buttons, and cart and menu icons through their control panel. Merchants can also change the mobile design entirely by updating the new mobile template.
This new offering will help ensure that all Yahoo merchants are ready for the Google algorithm change, which expands the use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal.
For more details on the new, adaptive mobile storefront, please see the appropriate Help article.
It has been a whirlwind several weeks since I last posted about our plans and progress as a team and our upcoming spin, and I wanted to pause to share with you some of the activities that have been underway all geared toward empowering our customers with powerful tools to grow their businesses.
We’ve recently announced several updates to our products, including advancements on the new Yahoo Stores, enhancements to Yahoo Merchant Solutions, a new partnership with Yahoo Shopping, and a new feature for Live Store Badge, which is driving fantastic results for the stores that have it enabled.
In addition to these product enhancements, the team is excited for our new future and preparing for the new course that lies ahead. This quarter, we completed the transition of our India-based engineering team to the US, bringing all technical employees under one roof! We’re also in the process of expanding our engineering, marketing, and business development teams. With our engineering team working together here in Sunnyvale and important hires being made across our team, we’re poised better than ever to provide the best level of support for you, our customers.
Personally, I’ve been very busy sharing our spin-off news and talking to customers and partners. And in these conversations, I have learned a lot and uncovered some questions that I would like to address directly:
We are 100% committed, as always, to not making any major server/technology changes during the crucial holiday season. Additionally, we are not anticipating any major infrastructure transition this year. When any technology transition does occur, we anticipate no downtime for merchants.
Our customers and partners have been telling us what features are most important to them for our Yahoo Merchant Solutions product. We are listening and are staffing up to deliver on that list to make this already powerful product even stronger.
The team is busy preparing for this year’s events. We’ll be at the Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition, in Chicago, June 2-5. If you’re planning on joining, please let us know! We’d love to host you at our customer and partner appreciation party. We’ll also be hosting three Yahoo Merchant Roadshows; check with your Account Manager for the one in your region.
As previously announced, we expect that the completion of the spin-off transaction will occur in Q4 2015. Yahoo Small Business will move to the new company prior to the completion of the transaction. We are working diligently with Yahoo to ensure there is a strong transition plan in place that allows us to take our time to thoughtfully design, test, and execute on all critical technology separations.
Again, I want to thank you for your continued business and trust in our team, and I hope you’re as excited about this new opportunity as we are!
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