RSS Explained

Written by Nick Usborne


What is RSS? To begin with, it's one of those things everyone says is easy to understand. And it is, as soon as you have your own 'ah-ha' moment.

I thinkrepparttar easiest way to explain it is to walk you through an example of RSS in action. I'm not going to try to explain everything onrepparttar 124527 subject, but this should help get you started.

>> Let's sign you up forrepparttar 124528 Excess Voice RSS Feed

If you want to readrepparttar 124529 Excess Voice newsletter every two weeks you can either read it in your email inbox, or read it in your web browser.

You already know how it works when you subscribe to a newsletter via email. You sign up, hoperepparttar 124530 spam filters don't block some or all issues, and then readrepparttar 124531 newsletter in your email program, whatever that might be.

With RSS, instead of subscribing via email, you subscribe via a web page.

>> Let's walk throughrepparttar 124532 subscription process

If you have a Yahoo! account, go to My Yahoo! and click through torepparttar 124533 Add Content page. Onrepparttar 124534 right side ofrepparttar 124535 'Find Content' area you will see a link that reads, Add RSS by URL.

Follow that link and, to addrepparttar 124536 Excess Voice RSS feed, simple paste this url intorepparttar 124537 field provided, http://www.excessvoice.com/excessfeed.xml (Don't click on this link. Cut and paste it.)

Now clickrepparttar 124538 Add button and you're done.

If you don't use Yahoo!, register at Bloglines.com and followrepparttar 124539 same process. Bloglines is a free service and is where I read allrepparttar 124540 RSS feeds to which I have subscribed.

>> What happens now?

Now, whenever you go to My Yahoo! or Bloglines, you will see whenrepparttar 124541 Excess Voice feed has been updated. In Yahoo! it tells you how many hours or days agorepparttar 124542 feed was updated. In Bloglinesrepparttar 124543 feed name will appear in bold, and a number afterrepparttar 124544 name tells you how many items withinrepparttar 124545 feed have been updated since you last checked. (Bloglines is one of several similar services. It's justrepparttar 124546 one I found first and have used ever since.)

>> What you see...

When you checkrepparttar 124547 Excess Voice feeds, you will see that with each feed, you don't getrepparttar 124548 complete content...you don't seerepparttar 124549 whole newsletter,repparttar 124550 complete article or all ofrepparttar 124551 review. You seerepparttar 124552 title andrepparttar 124553 first ten lines or so of content. Just enough so you can decide if you are interested or not.

If you want to readrepparttar 124554 whole article, for example, click onrepparttar 124555 link provided and you will be taken torepparttar 124556 page onrepparttar 124557 Excess Voice site where I have publishedrepparttar 124558 complete item.

Pricing Your Products

Written by David Bell


In our scramble to find a way to offerrepparttar lowest prices onrepparttar 124526 Internet, we often overlookrepparttar 124527 basic steps that we should be taking BEFORE we even offer a product for sale. We also overlook something even more important: you don't HAVE to haverepparttar 124528 lowest price in order to make great sales. Following are some things I do before and after determining my bottom line. I sell by having products drop-shipped for my sites, which works VERY well, but these steps should be covered no matter your distribution method. <> Should you be selling this item now? Snowboards don't sell well inrepparttar 124529 summertime. You may have a hard time moving a pair of roller blades in January. Don't waste your time and your site space marketing products out of season. Ask your supplier for a little historical information regardingrepparttar 124530 best time to sell their products. Believe me, to everything, there IS a season. They haverepparttar 124531 figures. If they don't want to share this info with you, find another supplier. <> Identify your costs Profit isn't justrepparttar 124532 difference between wholesale and retail. You have other costs to consider. Think about every penny you spend in order to get that product torepparttar 124533 customer's door, and plan accordingly. For example, your merchant account probably costs you about 2.2% plus 30 cents per transaction. On an item you'll sell for $20, that's 74 cents. Don't forget that calculation when pricingrepparttar 124534 item. Are you warehousingrepparttar 124535 item? How much is that space costing you per item per month? Did you spend money stocking up on shipping materials? How much per unit? What about advertising? Monthly hosting costs? You may need to project some estimated sales in order to arrive at some of these figures. This may seem very complicated, but it's really not. Just takerepparttar 124536 figures one at a time, and you'll arrive at a wholesale cost plus an amount that, when added together, becomes your initial ESTIMATE of "cost of goods sold". Identifying all your costs is critical if you want to price your products properly. <> Check outrepparttar 124537 competition Search onrepparttar 124538 item you plan to sell. Check outrepparttar 124539 competitors' prices. But DON'T get caught up trying to beatrepparttar 124540 wrong competitor. You need to stay within your "venue". My stores are built in Yahoo Shopping (http://store.yahoo.com). 90% of my traffic comes from there. When I seek out my competitors, I look for other businesses like mine ONLY in Yahoo Shopping. Then I compare. If I'm thinking about selling a product, and I get 1,500 hits in 400 stores on that item in Yahoo Shopping, forget it. If I get a hundred hits in 20 to 40 stores, I'll look into it further. So check outrepparttar 124541 competition, narrow down your product list, make a note ofrepparttar 124542 five lowest prices you find, and then ask yourself another question. <> Is anybody going to buy this thing? This doesn't have much to do with pricing, but it should be said. When considering products, there's unique, and then there's too unique. Yak Cheese may sound like something that nobody else has for sale onrepparttar 124543 'Net. There's a reason for that. If you sell more than 3 boxes a year, I'll EAT some.

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