Setting Up RSS Feeds

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is an XML-based data format that is used to distribute information online. Your customers can subscribe to your RSS feeds and be notified of new products and promotions. RSS Feeds can also be used to publish your product information to shopping aggregation sites, and can also be included in newsletters.

When RSS feeds are enabled, any additions to products, specials, categories, and coupons in your store are automatically sent to the subscribers of each feed. A link to all the RSS feeds that you publish is in the footer of your store.

The software that is used to read an RSS feed is called a feed readerSoftware that is used to read syndicated content from RSS feeds., and allows people to subscribe to headlines, blogs, podcasts, and much more. Google Reader is one of the many feed readers which are available online for free.

To set up RSS feeds for your store:

1.

From the Admin menu, select System > Configuration.

2.

In the upper-right corner, set Current Configuration Scope to the store view where you want the feeds to be available.

3.

In the panel on the left, under Catalog, select RSS Feeds.

4.

In the Rss Config section, set Enable RSS to “Enable.” Then, in each section below, set the feeds that you want to activate to “Enable.”

a.

In the Wishlist section, set Enable RSS to “Enable.”

b.

In the Catalog section, set any, or all, of the following feeds to “Enable.”

• New Products
• Special Products
• Coupons/Discounts
• Tags Products
• Top Level Category
• Top Level Category

c.

In the Order section, set Customer Order Status Notification to “Enable.”

5.

When complete, click the Save Config button.

• Types of RSS Feeds

  RSS Feed	Description
  Wishlist	When enabled, an RSS feed link appears at the top of customer wishlist pages. Additionally, the wishlist sharing page includes a checkbox that lets you include a link to the feed from shared wishlists.
  New Products	Publishes notification of new products added to the catalog.
  Special Products	Publishes notification of any products with special pricing.
  Coupons / Discounts	Publishes notification of any special coupons or discounts that are available in the store.
  Tags Products	Publishes notification of new product tags.
  Top Level Category	Publishes notification of any change to the top-level category structure of your catalog, which is reflected in the main menu.
  Customer Order Status	Gives customers the ability to track their order status by RSS feed. When enabled, an RSS feed link appears on the order.