671.79 Global Vision™ Sitebuilder - Modules: Online Store: Product Catalog as RSS Feed

Supplying Your Product Catalog as RSS Feed

Subscribing to your catalog RSS feed enables the customers to browse your product offerings and check for updates on a regular basis. Converting the contents of your online store catalog to RSS 2.0 format is done automatically by Sitebuilder: the RSS button is placed on the front page of your online store and by clicking this button, the customers proceed to a page where they can subscribe to your catalog RSS feed. The same RSS button is also shown on each category page, allowing your customers to monitor certain product categories only.

In Internet Explorer starting from version 7.0, the subscription is done by adding your feed to the browser's Favorites Center. In Mozilla Firefox, your customers will be suggested to subscribe either by adding your feed to their bookmarks or by using one of proposed RSS reader applications (Google, My Yahoo, Bloglines, and other).

If necessary, interested buyers and partners can incorporate your eShop RSS channel into their own web pages. To do so, they can use one of specialized add-ons - such as the Sitebuilder module RSS Reader.

The appearance of your product catalog in the RSS feed is as follows:

• All products are shown in a single sheet, not sorted by category
• Each product is rendered as a separate entry
• Each product color option is rendered as a separate entry (for example, T-Shirt, Blue navy and T-Shirt, Red are displayed as separate entries)
• Products are shown in the order you define on the Products tab of your online store

For each product, the RSS feed displays:

• The product name. By clicking it, customer proceeds to the product page of your online store, from which he or she can buy a product, or navigate to other pages of your online store.
• The product image (if uploaded)
• The brief description of the product (if specified)

In some cases, you may need to provide the RSS feed link to interested third parties.

To obtain the link to your catalog RSS feed:

1. On the eShop page, click Preview.
2. On the site preview, go to the online store page.
3. Right-click the RSS button on the main page of your store catalog and choose the Open in New Window option from the context menu.

   

4. Copy the link of the RSS feed page from the browser address bar.

You can supply this link to your partners by e-mail or otherwise.