I've been passively following the emergence of new, 'just in time' deal related online stores or 'retail indexing sites'. I guess I'd put things like InBubbleWrap in there too, but we'll get to that later. So, I guess I'd call this e-commerce with anticipation, or JIT (Just In Time for you non-manufacturing raised folks out there) e-commerce.

I just came across a new JIT shopping site Soupe Du Jour today, thanks to a reference from Cool Hunting. I've added to my daily troll list, along with WOOT! Here's what SDJ has to say about itself:

This site, along with MightyGoods, Dealtime (sort of) and a host of others are building affinity for the site with the element of surprise. Not something totally new, if you were the type to look at your little Amazon "gold box" on a daily basis. But we're entering (or right in the middle of) an age where shoppers have short spans of attention and have been so well trained to never shop for all but the most basic necessities without the requisite incentive placed before them. (coincidentally, a recent AutoVIBES study found that of consumers planning an auto purchase in the next 12 months, 51% are unlikely do to so without some form of incentive)

Some of these sites are pretty addictive, in fact, I visit mightygoods and woot on a regular basis. Woot is smart - they have an RSS feed, but some of the other sites I've seen are shooting themselves in the foot here by not offering their deals via RSS. In fact, I think that there's even more power in deals through RSS, but you can lead a horse to water without him ever drinking, so I guess we're riding the email pony express to find out about our deals until such a time when RSS in ingrained in the messaging habits of every e-commerce store, especially these JIT'commers.

Speaking of InBubbleWrap and other sites that are like them or any 'JIT deal sites' for that matter, I have a few thoughts for them. Since entering the world of online advertising in a bigger way that I ever was before as part of the Pheedo team, I've come to really appreciate the power of advertising and a vehicle for monetization of content. Sites like IBR could provide a valuable service to their sponsors/customers by not just giving away stuff, or providing deals, but also by selling advertising in the RSS feeds when those products are released, along with offering lead generation opportunities and customer data capture opportunities. It breaks down like this.