/ciol/media/agency_attachments/c0E28gS06GM3VmrXNw5G.png)
Follow UsJan Paschal
NEW YORK: Perhaps no season gives the wallet a workout like the holiday
season. That's why Yahoo! Wallet might help some shoppers stay solvent and sane
during this year's holiday rush.
And with the holiday season kicking into high gear this week, every host or
hostess could use a few timely tips to help prepare a guest room - without
pulling an all nighter to make it look like Martha Stewart lives under your
roof.
This Friday - the day that retailers call "Black Friday" because it
is seen as the official start of the holiday shopping season - they hope that
holiday sales will be strong enough to make sure they finish 2000 in the black.
Americans will flock to shopping malls and their favorite stores to start the
annual ritual of selecting gifts for Christmas or Hanukkah. If you are allergic
to crowds or panic when you can't find a parking space, it's a good time to
think about shopping online.
The Yahoo! Wallet "keeps everything that's related to your online
shopping in one place," said Jennifer Dulski, brand manager for Yahoo!
Shopping.
No more scrambling for scraps of paper in your billfold or yellow stick-it
notes tossed casually around your computer, right? Precisely.
Well, that might take the fun or the adrenaline rush out of holiday shopping
for those who love to be frantic. But for the rest of us, especially for the
perpetually disorganized or those who have to shop on the sly while their spouse
or kids are asleep, the Yahoo! Wallet could be a holiday blessing.
"If you have a Yahoo! Wallet, it stores your most recent order ID
numbers, the status of your orders and customer service information, so if
anything were to go wrong, you'd have the information you need all in one
place," Dulski said.
And the best point of all?
"You don't have to retype your credit card number," once you've
entered it in Yahoo! Wallet, Dulski said. This speeds up checkout, making it a
one-click affair. And "you can shop at over 10,000 stores" linked to
Yahoo! Shopping.
Target , Circuit City, JCPenney.com and eToys are among several brand-name
merchants that have recently joined Yahoo! Shopping. These names are additions
to Yahoo's existing roster of well-known retailers that includes Barnes &
Noble, Eddie Bauer, Brooks Brothers, Saks Fifth Avenue, FAO Schwarz and Gap.com.
Yahoo! Inc., based in Santa Clara, Calif., and ranked as the No. 2 Web and
digital media company in October measured by unique visitors by Jupiter Media
Metrix, an Internet and digital media research firm.
The creation of Yahoo! Wallet is part of a dizzying array of shopping tools
that Yahoo! is offering this season to make it as easy as possible for consumers
to shop online.
Some Yahoo! merchants will soon offer gift certificates that can be used both
online and off. A Buyer Protection Program, a merchant rating system and a gift
registry are the other amenities.
In this make-or-break season for online shopping, the Yahoo! strategy of
making things easy for the consumer is not just a gimmick. On Tuesday, Yahoo!
stock fell to $42-7/16, its lowest level in two years, after Morgan Stanley Dean
Witter analyst Mary Meeker said that among the Internet leaders, Yahoo! was
"most at risk to Internet ad spending trends."
The Yahoo! Shopping home page greeted visitors on Tuesday with the message:
"Only 34 days left until Christmas! Need help finding a gift?" The
last three words - "finding a gift" - comprise a link that can be
clicked, leading to the Gift Recommender, another new shopping feature that
suggests gift ideas for men, women and teenagers by personality type such as
Gadget Guy, Fashion Slave or Techie Teen.
The Shopping home page also has a "What's Hot" section with links
to merchandising displays of such sought-after items as the metal Razor Scooters
and their competitors, as well as games for Sony PlayStation 2. No Sony
PlayStation 2 consoles are available, though, Dulski noted. She suggested that
shoppers try Yahoo! Auctions instead to bid on Sony's red-hot video game console
and entertainment device, which includes a DVD player.
To check out Yahoo! Wallet, go to Yahoo! on the Web at http://www.yahoo.com
and click on the Shopping channel. To set up the wallet, you need to register
with Yahoo! as a user and then follow the instructions on the Shopping channel
to set it up. You will be asked for an extra password for security reasons.
Another new shopping tool from Yahoo! for this holiday season is called My
Shopping, a feature that lets you set up your own shopping page with favorite
stores and track purchase history with the help of Yahoo! Wallet.
"Yahoo! is a leader in personalization," Dulski said, adding that
the Internet company has 155 million registered users. "Way back in 1996,
we launched My Yahoo!" so users could personalize news they want to see.
"We took that idea and extended it to make My Shopping, so all the
information that's relevant to you" is at your fingertips.
Your mailing address or preferred shipping addresses of gift recipients also
can be stored in the Yahoo! Wallet - again cutting the chance of error so your
holiday-numbed fingers don't have to retype an address over and over again.
The tracking qualities of Yahoo! Wallet appeal to men and women, making it
"relevant to almost everybody," she added.
Keeping on top of online purchases with Yahoo! Wallet or any other method
also might make it easier to stick to your budget at a time of year when almost
everyone piles up massive debt, according to Myvesta.org, a national, nonprofit
organization devoted to helping people get out of debt.
The average holiday shopper will spend $1,220 in 2000, up from $841 in 1999,
according to the Second Annual Holiday Survey by Myvesta.org, based in
Rockville, Md. One in 10 shoppers will spend more than $1,500. (For more
information on this group, go to its Web site: http://www.myvesta.org.)
Those figures seem high when compared with data from The Conference Board, a
private research group, which said American households are expected to spend an
average $490 on Christmas gifts this year, just below $495 in 1999.
(C) Reuters Limited 2000.