50% Off Your Next RSS!
Purveyor of printable savings coupons.com has an RSS feed of their wares.
I’m not a coupon-clipper kind of guy, but I can see how this delivery mechanism would be really appealing… if only they could solve three fatal flaws. So, in the spirit of the friendly internet and free consulting, here is how coupons.com could make their feed great:
1) Customize it. There is no way to refine the feed based on category or product type. What would make the RSS really interesting is to have it be a “smart feed” that is searching for coupons that you would actually use. (I have no need to “Save $1.00 on POISE products”, thanks very much. That one to “Save $0.40 on NESTLE TOLL HOUSE Morsels” looks pretty good, though. On second thought, I should probably go for those Lean Cuisine entrees.)
2) Privatize it. What I mean is this: let your users keep their privacy. The feed items don’t take you to a coupon unless you are logged in. Let’s face it: you’re providing advertisements. You’ll get a lot more hits if you don’t make people give you their email addresses. I’d rather keep my privacy and lose the 40 cent chocolate chip discount. If your business model requires users to have an account just to see the ad coupon…. time to rethink the business model. I get coupons for “Resident” in snail mail every day, thanks.
3) Convenientize it. Show me the coupon, please, not just a link to it. Next, lets take that feed and add an immediate action link in each item: “Print this coupon”. The link should take you straight to the coupon page’s print view, which would promptly invoke your print dialog. Now that would be handy.
