You might think, then, that Yahoo! would be among the best at guiding a business user through the setup of an online store, even if they were new to the Internet. Yet I found the process to be less than intuitive. Nevertheless, if you are able to find the necessary links and navigate your way through a labyrinthine setup process, you can end up with a professional-looking and functional site.

Name That Store
Signing up for a basic Merchant Starter account is simple enough, and is a good way to get an initial online storefront up and running.

I started out by going to Yahoo!'s Small Business site and clicked the Merchant Solutions link. It's necessary to have a Yahoo! account, so I logged into my existing account and began the process of creating my store by choosing a name. With the setup fee of $39.95, Yahoo! includes one domain name registration -- although if you already have an existing domain name of your own, you can use it instead, if you like. I entered "ScottsCoolStuff.com" as my requested store name. Yahoo! determined the name was available and processed the registration for me.

With a store name in place I was directed to the Store Manager page, the main interface for designing and overseeing your store. Store Manager's functions range from the clear to the confusing. The interface contains ten functions, some of which are easy-to-understand, like Store Editor, Catalog Manager, Orders, and Inventory. The lists also contain functions that aren't so intuitive, like Store Tag Hub, References, and Requests. Redesigning this page would go a long way toward making it less daunting for newbies and would flatten the learning curve.

Customization
From Store Manager, I started working on my site with the Store Editor function, which enables users to select a basic page layout, colors, and fonts for my store. In Store Editor, you can also enter a welcome message that appears on your store's front page.

I was disappointed by the relatively crude interface for this portion of the process. While I was able to work through it, I had to click several links just to find out what they were supposed to do, only to have to return to the Store Editor page and try something else. Even after getting the hang of the tools, the Store Editor area offers relatively barebones design capabilities. After false starts, I was able to build a functional -- but boring -- storefront.

What's for Sale?
Now, to add some inventory. I returned to the Manager page and then selected Catalog Manager. That area greeted me with an explanation of its purpose, and a link to "Learn how to get started!" along with several additional links to Manage Your Items, Manage Your Tables (unclear what these are, as of yet), and other functions. I chose to "Learn how to get started!" first. Unfortunately, all I learned was some fairly unconstructive definitions of each of the core Catalog Manager functions -- leaving me to the old "click-and-try" method of figuring out the system.

Manage Your Items enables you to add products to your catalog of products. You must enter information about each product, including data such as a product ID, description, shipping weight, and selling price. There is space for a headline and extended descriptions, and also a link to upload a photo of each item.

I was able to successfully create an item without much difficulty. It's only necessary to complete a few of the long list of data fields in order to create a sellable item. If your particular product has options like size or color, they can be added as well.

Continued on Page Two: Publishing and Payments.