Another significant improvement is the inclusion of tax and shipping calculators at the very top of the checkout page, eliminating the surprise factor when customers discover that the attractive $9 price they thought they were getting balloons to $19 when the full price is revealed after they have provided all of the payment information.

Customers theoretically will find the higher total price less objectionable if they see it before they have filled out address and credit card information and feel they have a more risk-free exit option.

"Buyers really don't want to be surprised about the cost right before checkout," said Yahoo's Duvall. "We're now putting the shipping/coupon calculator right in the shopping cart. They just type in their Zip code, and the shipping and tax charges will appear right in the shopping cart."

That area will also handle coupons so customers don't have to worry about whether they'll have a chance to redeem one, Duvall said.

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Yankee's Aggarwal said the upfront full pricing is important. "The customer doesn't have to go through multiple pages for a purchase. They can do it on one page and know before they buy an estimate on shipping, taxes and coupons," he said. "This way, they don't have to spend 10 minutes only to find out that shipping is going to be $50."

Jeremy Alicandri is the CEO of SimplyCheap.com, a discount electronics retailer that has been hosted by Yahoo's service for about six years and who spoke with Yahoo officials about the changes. He agreed that his site will benefit from the pricing consolidation presentation. "If a customer has to fill in information before they get that, there's more of a likelihood of them leaving," Alicandri said. "With some Internet sites' shipping costs inflating, a savvy customer knows they need to get those prices beforehand."

Alicandri also said the design change is a huge improvement.

"Branding is very important online. Internet customer loyalty is very low. Anything we can do to remind them of who we are is very beneficial," he said. "Before these changes, you'd add the item to the cart and see a standard template that every Yahoo store has. It even said Yahoo on it. It wasn't an opportunity to brand your store."

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Alicandri added that shopping cart abandonment is a terribly important issue for small and medium merchants.

"We needed to show them more information to make them trusting customers. Now we can change the look of the store and add new fields, such as asking for information about where the consumer came from the Internet," he said. "That lets us know how our advertising dollars are working."

Yahoo's changes are improvements, but Jupiter's Evans stresses that it's nothing that many other sites aren't already offering. "This is simply bringing Yahoo's checkout more in line with standard and best practices," she said.

Retail Center Editor Evan Schuman can be reached at Evan_Schuman@ziffdavis.com.

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