How to format YTickLabel with x10^n on when plotting a figure?

How to set the decimal digits of YTickLabel in figure? I tried some ways, but numbers with '%.4f' was too long, numbers with '%.2e' not good, either.

The following figure may be helpful for my question.

The left one uses

 set (gca, 'YTickLabel', num2str (get (gca, 'YTick').' , '%.4f) )

The central one uses

 set (gca, 'YTickLabel', num2str (get (gca, 'YTick').' , '%.2e) )

And the right one uses the default settings.

What I really want is as following figure.

Answer 1

[Sean de Wolski]

y = rand(10,1)*5000;
ax = axes;
plot(y)
ax.YAxis.Exponent = 3;

Answer 2

[Danesh Bankwala]

Did you ever figure this out? I have a similar problem.