A revolution has been taking place in online publishing, with Internet users eschewing e-mail and the Web as ways to receive their news and information in favor of a newer technology called RSS.
Now, RSS is finding its way into e-commerce -- with savvy buyers making their shopping easier by employing RSS notifications to alert them when items they seek become available. And it's a technology that online sellers need to understand if they want to command buyers' attention.
RSS has multiple pseudonyms, although a common name is Really Simple Syndication. Developed as a way to publish information via an XML feed, RSS can transmit information to an opt-in audience without the burden of maintaining mailing lists and the risk of spam. In order to receive RSS feeds, the recipient uses software to query a specific URL where the feed is being syndicated; that query is then executed as often as they like.
The end result is that RSS recipients retrieve only the information they want, and only on their own schedule. That's one of the reasons that RSS has become so popular -- and why they serve as a growing consumer alternative to often-unmanageable e-mail inboxes or regularly visited Web sites.
Also helping to promote RSS is the fact that it's becoming increasingly easy for consumers to begin using the technology. You might have noticed the little orange "XML" button on Web sites that you visit (eCommerce-Guide has one, below.) That button is the standard means of indicating that the page you are viewing is set up to be delivered as an RSS feed.
The URL to which that button links is the site's RSS feed, and consumers can add that URL to their RSS reader software. Many current RSS readers like Feedreader, RSSReader and NewsGator even allow users to simply drag the button to their interface to add the feed to their viewer.
RSS and Selling
One traditional way to alert potential shoppers to new products has been via e-mail. If you specialize in selling model trains, for instance, you could attempt to collect likely customers' e-mail addresses and send notifications to them whenever you post an item for sale. But gathering e-mail addresses can be expensive and controversial, and you run the risk of being considered a spammer (even if you're fully opt-in).
A simpler method might be to create an RSS feed that includes your latest products, or to post your items on a site that supports RSS publication. Either way, you could let your prospective buyers subscribe to your product feed. This creates a fully opt-in notification process for alerting buyers about new products, while freeing you from the burden of crafting and delivering e-mail and maintaining an address database.
What to feed
Adding an RSS feed to your site's HTML code is a relative no-brainer, and a number of tools and tutorials are out there for the technically inclined. Since RSS is XML, it's free and similar to XML, and generating RSS feeds from your static or dynamic e-commerce site requires only a minimal investment in time or in software.
Sellers moving products on other e-commerce sites can take advantage of the new trend as well. For instance, the transient and time-dependent nature of e-commerce auctions make them a natural candidate for inclusion in an RSS feed. Not surprisingly, eBay allows RSS queries as a standard part of its site. Prospective buyers can turn a product search into an RSS feed -- the search results then appear in their RSS reader.
Continued on Page Two: Affiliates, Aggregators and RSS, and looking ahead.
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