I think of it like the Land Rush of 1854: tens of thousands of Internet merchants are using the Yahoo Storefront platform to launch their own online store – 35,000 newbie merchants by recent count, and the number rises daily.

For $39 a month, Yahoo makes it a no-brainer: It offers all the tools in one place, in an easy-to-use format. But as I report in this article, launching with Yahoo’s template is only Step One for many merchants. An entire community of Web developers has sprung up, specializing in tweaking Yahoo’s basic storefront. The dollars are flowing…