So, like many of you have already noticed, Yahoo increased their hosting fees. Starting Oct 1, 2008, those stores that are on the Standard and Legacy accounts will see a 33% increase in their monthly fee. From 99.99 per month to 129.95 per month. And here's a little shocker for ya… check out their info page http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce/plans.php and you will not see a price change here. So guess what that means? All potentially new Yahoo store owners will get caught in a trap. Can you imagine doing your research, choosing Yahoo Merchant Solutions as their ecommerce solution of choice and within 30 days already get hit with a price increase?! Sounds quite shady really…

What aggravates me the most is that there is no changes to warrant a 33% increase. Yahoo already takes 1%, or more, of the total sales each month for doing nothing. Now they add an extra 30 bucks a month…thats like a instant 12 million dollar profit (PER MONTH!) for doing nothing more than they are doing right now.

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE Yahoo Stores. Its easy to use, its really search engine friendly and it includes 95% of the features needed to operate an successful online business. I just hate the fact that companies do this type of thing knowing how handicapped most business owners are. I know that I am not packing up and leaving to start over somewhere else and other Yahoo store owners won't do it either.

Please don't take this message the wrong way. Sometimes we get used to being able to operate our business as cheaply and efficiently as possible and when someone throws a monkey wrench in the program, we get our panties in a bunch. All in all, a Yahoo store is still one of the cheapest ways to operate an ecommerce business online and as long as Yahoo continues to prove their system produces, we will keep on paying the price.

But it doesn't mean we cannot gripe about it from time to time;-p