Introducing Yahoo Stores | Hacker News Reader

Introducing Yahoo Stores

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105 pointsAhtiK48 comments

I saw this headline and my first thought was "what is this? 1999?"

Nothing about this looks 1999.

I think they may be referring to the oringinal Yahoo Stores aka ViaWeb.

..that was cofounded by PG:

Viaweb was a web-based application that allowed users to build and host their own online stores with little effort and technical expertise, directly from their own web browser. The eponymous company was started in July 1995 by Paul Graham, Robert Morris, and Trevor Blackwell. Graham claims that Viaweb was the first application service provider.[..] In 1998, Yahoo! Inc. bought Viaweb for 455,000 shares of Yahoo! stock, valued at about $49 million, and renamed it Yahoo! Store.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viaweb

Note to Yahoo.. there was this company Viaweb you purchased like 15 years ago, oh wait never mind I'm sure you remember.

The sad thing is that they might not remember. A new product manager at Yahoo! might be 22 - 24 years old, and that means they were under 10 in 1999. And Yahoo! has undergone a lot of churn over the years and staff turnover. It is entirely possible that much of the history has been lost.

While its clear from the announcement[1] that they do recall they had something called Yahoo! Stores before, I'm wondering if they really remember what worked and what didn't work from their previous version. Sort of all new and all of the issues from previous versions fixed. Or is it just all new look but we didn't do anything about the issues.

[1] "Today, we’re excited to introduce Yahoo Stores, a completely reimagined, next-generation version of our eCommerce platform" -- Yahoo! Stores announcement.

Is it written in Perl?

It could be like Viaweb, and be written in Lisp.

brace yourself, next year is going to be rocky. But Yahoo will survive.

we've found the periodicity of the startup groundhog loop.

Congrats, Amit!

I met Amit at Yahoo (he was in Search; his Outlook entry read "Amit (Web Search) Kumar" and I still think of that sort of like his middle name.

He founded Lexity, which Yahoo acquired, and he's moved up since.

I was an investor in Lexity, mainly because Amit was able to actually ship things at Yahoo. It bodes well for him and their future.

PS - It's amazing how pointlessly hypercritical and condescending HN has become. Are you really saying they can't relaunch a product that they acquired once?

I worked in the Yahoo Stores team between 2005-2008. At that time it was known as Yahoo Merchant Solutions. Most of the features they've mentioned in today's announcement were already present back then. And yes, this is the same PG's viaweb.

I was expecting a [2002] or something similar after the headline. I have been pretty surprised at the amount of revenue I've seen some businesses generate through Yahoo Stores and, really, the only reason they left the stores was because the merchant support was awful and the cut was way, way too high.

Yahoo is a perfect example of a company that has had its foot in basically every great opportunity on the web. And yet, it sucks at basically all of them.

The best thing to have happened to the Internet is Yahoo being priced out of acquiring Google and Facebook during their early stages. Its pretty clear what would have been made of them under Yahoo's roof.

Facebook failing or never existing? How could this be a bad thing? Google not being as dominant or Yahoo getting their technology and yet also not being dominant? I fail to see how these are bad. I use technology from neither company myself.

I think the majority of these companies suck at so much because they try and be all things to all people. In unity there is strength, but when you try to do it all, you fail.

I don't trust Google because they have their fingers in every pie on the Internet. They want to make money, money, money with little thought of anything else or what it takes to get there or how much privacy is looted. Yahoo is an also ran with little hope of being anything more than what it was and is.

Yeah, it may have been a good thing for Google's tech to go to Yahoo and drive up some competition, but avoid Google becoming so enormous. Eventually Yahoo would have messed it up, so it would not be the threat it is today. OTOH, Google's still going full speed, and competition seems ... underwhelming. So Y! buying it could just mean we'd have search engine technology set back years.

OTOH Facebook being so dominant has no positive effects that I'm aware of. Hurting Facebook creates a win for everyone across the board. As upsetting as it is, they really do seem to be passed the size where they can quickly fall apart (like MySpace).

On a slightly related note, I'm also bewildered how MS could have considered dozens of billions for Yahoo, but let Sun get bought by Oracle for so little.

I'm not sure that the dominant influence of Google and Facebook has been a net benefit for the internet. I can't help but think we might have maintained a significantly more open and decentralized web if Yahoo had acquired them early on.

Major sticker shock after clicking the 'Create your store' button—they drop you into an order screen with 1 year of the 'pro' plan selected for $828. Caught me very off guard. No free trial? I'd love to kick the tires before they try to get me to pay for a year up front.

The lesser plans seem like an easier/cheaper way to kick the tires around, but yeah a trial would be nice.

That said, 0.75% transaction fee seems really cheap if that's the full credit card processing... Not sure if it is though. Anyone know what this really covers?

It's a transaction fee applied in addition to the credit card processing fees.

There are many other solutions out there, including Shopify and ours, Weebly eCommerce. We offer our complete plan for $25/month and have a 0% transaction fee:

http://www.weebly.com/#plans/compare http://www.weebly.com/features/#!/ecommerce-website

I currently use FastSpring and AquaticPrime for the licensing.

Would you be able to be a drop in replacement for them? currently paying them thousands monthly. $25 a month and 0% transaction fees is sounding very inviting.

Although the 'basic' at $323 seems less than Shopify's 'basic' as $29/mo. Not sure how the features compare. I agree with you about the free trial thing - surely they should do one?

"Turn Your Idea Into a Business in Less Than 2 Minutes"

GoDaddy also has an ecommerce website builder (and like Yahoo it isn't easy enough to compete with Weebly or robust enough to touch Shopify).

But what's interesting is that GoDaddy advertises itself the same way as Yahoo does here. GoDaddy always has slogans like: "Get Up And Running In 5 Minutes!"

I've asked people internal at GoDaddy about this and they've said this is what their users always say they want. So I bet Yahoo has run similar surveys and had similiar conclusions: people want to build websites in 5 minutes.

The problem is obvious. Any website worth building will take much longer than 2 minutes to make. It strikes me as a bit of a tone-deaf marketing slogan.

> It strikes me as a bit of a tone-deaf marketing slogan.

They're just telling people what they want to hear, you said so yourself. Asides from techies and designers, most people don't really care about building a highly customized web site. Hell, it seems most WordPress users stick with whatever default theme is included.

I love the irony of reading this headline on Hacker News. PG's running laps around the internet.

Are online stores as simple as blog + inventory + accepting credit cards?

I don't mean the platform is simple. Or that implementing a store builder is simple. But the concept and the interface from the end user (store owner) point of view. Basically, if you can create a Tumbler or Wordpress blog and have a list of products, can you have a store?

It would seem so.

Pretty amazing how tech can remove frictions. And yet my cable box still uses as much electricity as my fridge and the remote has more buttons that a small plane.

Most blogs make bad ecommerce sites, and most ecommerce sites make bad blogs. It's unfortunate but what I'm seeing is - for example, with Zencart, I have to litterally embed Wordpress inside of my Zencart installation. Ugh!

This is the entire premise behind Gumroad. If you have something to sell, all you really need is a page to merchandise it and accept credit cards.

Not only that, but with fulfilled by amazon you can have them keep your entire stock in their warehouses and ship it out for you.

Timing is interestingly close to Amazon Local Register launch from yesterday.

It's not clear from the website what the fees for payments are.

From the screenshot it reads "When you get your first order, we'll ask a few more details to complete the setup."

It isn't that type of store. It is just online webfront, and is in fact just a re-release of one of the older products in yahoo's portfolio (Since they effectively no longer have search or category based guides).

Agreed, my fault, it's not the same type of store - Amazon register is for in-store swipes while Y! is for online store.

Yet, my understanding is that previously they didn't have the built-in payment processing and from the screenshot it looks now like a streamlined process without the need to setup your own gateway or Paypal Payments Pro or whatever it was called etc. IMHO it would make sense to clearly state the processing fees.

As best as I can tell they just folded in Paypal a bit tighter. Which makes sense, at this point Yahoo would have a hard time even coming up with a better/cheaper option.

Has anyone had any experience with Amazon Web Store? Although I haven't tried it myself, one of the most appealing things about it is that the customer can use their amazon account and if you opt for the fulfillment by Amazon option (which is a different optional service), your customers can use their prime shipping account to get free two day shipping and Amazon takes care of the entire shipping process. Sounds like a killer feature but I was just wondering if anyone had any real experience with it.

Yes, I did sell a few electronics I bought for Thanksgiving using this. Found it very convenient - as easy as buying on Amazon if you discount the trip to a drop of location (of the carrier of your choice, of course). The fee is ~7% but totally worth it.

The criticism here is funny! You need to keep a few things in mind. Yahoo has a HUGE small business audience. Most of that audience isn't anywhere near as technical as most people here. They don't give a shit about the technology behind the curtain. They also don't give a shit about how trendy it is. They just want it to work and to them, Yahoo is a trustworthy partner.

How does PG feel about this? I don't mean in a theoretical, reporter-seeking-a-quick-headline kinda way.

I mean, as someone that literally built something from scratch that was acquired by a tech giant some 15+ years ago....to have them still see how important an acquisition it was to them, that 15+ years later (which is like 200 years in Internet Time) they have re-invested in this same property and just relaunched it.

On some level this mean feel good...yes? But what are the other things you feel as both an inventor and entrepreneur when you see this?

The reason I ask is because for me, I haven't done anywhere near that level...but the little fitness product that I created that is helping people lose weight and change their lives...hearing those stories still gives me goosebumps and chills.

So I imagine this, considering that many acquisitions nowadays end up with the acquired company/project just killed off, must be a whole other set of emotions and feelings all wrapped up in one.

Would love to hear his perspective on that.

Wow... they should have released this ages ago and participated in the renaissance brought on by Shopify/Squarespace et al.

As others have said, they're in lots of businesses and this looks like another half-baked example of too little, too late. Still, they'll probably make some money transitioning legacy clients to the more expensive platform.

is this PG's Viaweb?

Wow, did it just drop me into a $828 price page without even letting me try. I wish I trusted yahoo enough to give them that kind of money upfront.

Service looks incredibly dated and the pricing is all out of whack.

The whole "in 2 minutes" thing never resonates with me. To me it implies a crappy service. Anything (sizable; like, oh, say, going into business) doable in 2 minutes is NOT worth doing.

As a website-building shingle-hanger, I love that "in 2 minutes" services exist. They are like a blowoff valve for my business. If a potential client isn't going to take advantage of the particular ways in which I could help them, vvvupp-PSHHHHHHH--I vent their project off to an "in 2 minutes" service or Squarespace. "Why pay more?"

I'm happy to recommend those services and glad my business coach convinced me to consider how valuable they are in communicating my market position. They also remind me to think about ways to differentiate myself and actively communicate value to prospective clients. It's a cliche but the goal is that clients--no matter who they are--all win, and I win too.

Seeing this announced on a tumblr is pretty jarring. I have no expectation that a tumblr post will be substantial like that.

(google's official blog being on blogspot is kind of the same way, though.)

$29/mo basic plan and no trial? Meh. I will not even bother looking. Why? Because this makes me feel like they are dodging something..

Man, I hope it's still written in CL...

Coming next month: Google Reader

I like the idea, but...

why twenty years late to the party?

Does anybody still trust Yahoo?

Funnily, besides the "sticker shock" comment, there's not any other comment I found insightful in this post (including mine, but it's a meta-comment).

People reminiscing about ViaWeb, other's name-calling Yahoo, asking if it's "written in Perl", etc...

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