Internet Retailer

Case Study - Sears

  Business Challenge: Develop Simple, Branded RSS Program
Sears wanted to connect with and promote weekly specials to consumers not visiting its website. The retailer also sought to enhance natural search results by syndicating its special retail offers to portals, search engines and social networks. However, creating a typical line-of-text RSS feed was unacceptable, as Sears wanted to highlight the trusted brands it sells. In addition, Sears needed the RSS feed subscription process to be simple enough for even non-technical customers. The retailer also wanted to tie RSS feeds to retail sales so that it could monitor the program's success.

   Solution: One-Click Subscription Process
Sears and deployed SimpleFeed in three weeks – without IT resources. Using existing data feeds as content, SimpleFeed created templated feeds that reflect Sears-sold brands with logos, fonts, colors and images. The solution features a checkbox preferencing center and a one-click subscription option to simplify the subscription process. Each subscriber receives a unique URL, allowing Sears to precisely measure RSS for retail program results. Because SimpleFeed integrates with web analytics solutions, Sears can determine the ROI on its RSS for e-commerce programs. SimpleFeed also syndicates content to leading directories and portals, enhancing exposure of Sears feeds and offers.

   Results: Retail Industry's First E-Commerce RSS Feed
The Sears RSS feeds are the world's first buy-it-now e-commerce RSS feeds; customers can purchase products through the feeds. Not only are the feeds a critical success, they deliver additional bottom-line revenue. Sears recently expanded the program, adding shoe-of-the-day and health-and-wellness offers. Feeds now also include automatically inserted email content and are syndicated to the Sears Facebook Fan Page.

Image 1 - Sears RSS Preference Center

Image 2 Sears RSS Content in an RSS Reader

According to a Sears spokesperson, Sears uses SimpleFeed RSS technology “to connect with our customers, presenting the right offer to the right consumer at the right time. If one of our customers is looking to buy a new pair of shoes, we want to provide them with the power to monitor the latest shoe promotions. Everybody wins."

Image 3 – Sears RSS content syndicated onto its Facebook Fan Page