Michael Roebuck's Blog

Early this week, enhancements to Yahoo! new Site Search beta, Catalog Manager, and Customer Registration features are planned to be released. The release work is planned from 7:30 p.m. PT on February 21 until 6:30 a.m. PT on February 22. As with all releases, the time and date is subject to change without notice pending quality assurance best practices. Additional information follows about the specific enhancements and changes in this release.

New Site Search Beta and Catalog Manager Features
In late 2011, Yahoo! released the new Site Search beta, which included features designed for better merchandising on your search results page and an improved search experience. This week's release adds more features designed to achieve this, and makes some improvements to the search functionality. Upon release, you will be able to:

• Specify items to appear first in search results when a search term matches an item. For example, if you wish to show matching items with higher margins, this new option can help you do this.*
• Enable a "quick look" view on the search results page for item results.
• Specify categories to show in the search bar category drop-down list.
• Make brand name letter casing consistent for all brands displayed in the brand filter.
• Search by UPC.
• Choose whether or not to show Customer Registration and Floating Cart links on the search results page. This option is for custom templates only.
• Enable the new Site Search beta for stores built using Web Hosting tools.

*Note: A new "promoted" attribute has been added to Catalog Manager as part of the option to specify items to appear first in search results. Instructions for how to add this attribute will be available in the new Site Search online help section upon release.

Going forward, the new Site Search will be enabled by default in all new Yahoo! Merchant Solutions accounts.

Facebook ID for Customer Registration
Registration and authentication options for our Customer Registration system are expanding. This release adds Facebook as a provider ID shoppers can use to register and authenticate with your store. Instructions for enabling this option will be available in the Customer Registration help section upon release.

Additional Changes
In addition to the changes outlined above, several minor fixes were completed in this release. These fixes include the ability to add "Keywords" as a custom attribute in catalog manager tables and the ability to search by an option attribute in catalog manager advanced search.

Important Release Information
Once the release work is complete, your Publish Order Settings link may become active. Please note that an Order Settings publish is not required following this release. If you are using the Database Inventory feature, you will need to change your "Quantity Can Exceed Availability" settings to "Yes" for the release period. For more details about the release work, please check your Store Manager or the System Status page.

Labels: account, manager, search, updates, yahoo

Please note Yahoo has recently fixed a bug that was allowing people to use site wide coupon codes to buy gift certificates at that discount. Many of you were using this bug as a feature. Please note coupon codes will no longer be allowed to purchase gift certificates at a discount. There is not a way around it.

For example, you will no longer be able to receive 10% off a $100 Gift Certificate by using coupon code xyz.

Labels: certificate, code, coupon, gift