feedcommerce for consumers

Rather than having to periodically go to many retailers web sites to browse and search for products, feedcommerce makes online shopping and buying a more direct and passive experience for consumers. For the consumer a key attraction of feedcommerce is the ability to create or configure widgets that deliver products that match their intentions. This achieved by using the widget to create a personalised feed. Personalised feeds allow consumers to signal their intent by configuring the widget to deliver only the content they are interested in.

Personalised feeds

If you wanted to fly to Amsterdam in a couple of months and want to find a good flight deal it would be far easier to use an agent that will do the searching for you rather than constantly check various web sites (or newspapers!) for the best flight option. A key element of feedcommerce is enabling consumers to create these personalised feed 'agents' that only return the products and offers that match the consumers interests.

a feedcommerce widget with personalised content

Using the flight example above, a personalised feed can be indirectly created through a widget using a number of simple parameters:

  • The type of product (a flight)
  • The departure and destination airports (e.g. From SFX to NYC)
  • The dates or date ranges for travel
  • The vendors (airline carriers or intermediary travel website)
  • The maximum price ($500)

Other examples illustrate the variety of products that can be distributed via feeds. Some more examples might be:

  • Special Offers / Deals - For example, if a consumer wants to buy a new flat-screen TV they could specify they are looking for a 42" LCD TVs from Panasonic OR Philips for less than $2000
  • Events - a consumer could specify they are looking for tickets for U2 gigs in Europe in the next 6 months
  • Dating - a consumer could describe the type of person they are looking to meet online

In each case, the consumers personalised feed will only ever contain items whenever participating retailers are offering products within the specified parameters.

These are just examples of the options the consumer might have to chose from to create their personalised feed agent. Widgets based on advanced feedcommerce systems present rich user interfaces to the consumer to allow them to create personalised feeds that will do all the searching for them and deliver the results directly to their platform of choice. The rich format of underlying product feed data is key to enabling creation of user interfaces that ordinary internet users can interact with.

Hide the feeds!

A key success factor in the adoption of feedcommerce is the avoidance of exposing the raw underlying feed and platform technology to the consumer. A common observation by many technology evangelists is that the average internet user (the ones who comprise 90% of the internet population!) do not 'get' feeds yet. In almost all instances of successful feed commerce deployments when a consumer is configuring their agent there are no references in the user interface that relate to the underlying feed or platform technology. However, the key point, in the context of the audience for this article is that feeds are the lingua franca of feedcommerce.