I seem to get this question a lot: can you use PHP with the Yahoo Store catalog? The short answer is unfortunately now. With store-tags you can access the catalog, any item and any property of any item from within an HTML page (running on Yahoo's server), but the same is not true for PHP scripts. Store tags are special tags you can embed inside any HTML page of a yahoo store, and those special tags are then replaced by the server with some referenced property of some item in the store catalog. Although store tags were meant to be used in web hosting Yahoo Stores, they actually do work in the Yahoo Store editor as well! You can easily try it out, pick a store tag (see here for store-tag info: http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/store/tags/ ) and put it in any text field in the editor. While it would be a powerful feature of Yahoo Store to be able to use store-tags in PHP, because currently it is not supported, you are still have to rely on RTML and templates if you want to have more con...

Some online merchants consider a nice, professional store design just a gimmick, an unnecessary expense. They say, "if I have a great product people want and I provide good customer service, shoppers will come." This may be true for stores that cater to a narrow niche market with not much competition. But in general, when you have to compete with many other stores in your business, a good design is a must. Recently, a client of mine showed me this actual customer review : "Fast, fast shipping, and product delivered as described, I had never heard of this company, but would do business with again. I originally had doubts as the website was not that flashy, but happily I was proven wrong. I would give this company an A+!" This sale closed, but how many other visitors to this web site may have turned away, because the web site wasn't "flashy?" And by flashy, he really meant "professional-looking". Today, online shoppers have millions of options...