syndication for commerce

["seanno" <seanno@yahoo.com>]

In a previous life I was cto at a (still alive!) online retailer. One 
of the biggest challenges we faced was maintaining "top-of-mind" with 
our customers --- they loved shopping with us, but after an initial 
honeymoon period would basically forget that we existed.

We sent a LOT of email to try and combat this. And it worked to some 
extent, but it was obviously a fine line to walk. For every customer 
who returned, we probably lost one who was sick of spam and another 
who just acquired muscle-memory for deleting email.

It seems to me that syndication --- and particular the RSS reader 
format --- may offer a fantastic way to keep the connection between a 
retailer and customer alive in an unobtrusive, positive way. So long 
as the feed doesn't get too spammy, an offer or two every few days 
for something I may find of value and --- most importantly --- can 
ignore smoothly might be a very welcome thing.

Anyways, I want to see the numbers on this: will people subscribe to 
a commerce feed, do they stay subscribed, and do they every click 
through the content? Beyond that, what's the most effective and least 
annoying way to deliver commerce info? I put together a couple of 
feeds for Overstock.com and am using an affiliate id to track the 
results ... check it out at 
http://www.yaywastaken.com/rss/overstock ... and send your comments 
my way at sean@yaywastaken.com. Thanks!

I'm sure some folks will bristle at the very thought of this. That's 
cool, but I think online shopping is largely a good thing and would 
love to figure out how to apply technology to make it even more 
seamless and convenient. I think would be a Good Thing if this idea 
works out and you see "weekly special" feeds or whatever showing up 
at sites I use.

---S