Yahoo wants to help small businesses sell things online with Yahoo Stores

Yahoo on Thursday unveiled a new web service for small businesses looking to sell their goods online. The Sunnyvale Internet giant is attempting to revamp its offerings to small businesses, this time with a suite of services for upstart retailers that want to start selling online. Yahoo’s small business division, which offers web hosting, domains and basic website templates, has rolled out Yahoo Stores — a new e-commerce platform that lets small business owners create a website and begin selling within minutes. Yahoo Stores is a play for the small retailers that have traditionally flocked to Amazon to sell their products, hoping to leverage the company’s massive e-commerce online audience and shipping and fulfillment services to grow their businesses. Yahoo Stores is for e-commerce newbies who don’t know much about website design and may not have the time or skills to build their own website. Business owners can create an online storefront using a prepackaged website template, and add descriptions and photos of the items they’re selling. Yahoo facilitates online payments so that sales can happen immediately. The website goes live — on desktop and mobile — within minutes of the business owner signing up.