Do Categories Matter: General Book VS Antiquarian VS Collectible Sub-category?

[jmgrobe]

Any experience or thoughts on this?

Thanks!

[bugler1998]

Jonathan:  Good to see your post.

Not being the biggest expert, I will repeat what I have heard from others.  In the old days, almost all of my searches were by category,  Today with the limited number of categories ebay gives us, nobody has enough time to search an entire category.

Additionally fairly recently ebay required us to list books with a large number of item specifics.  a search for  the title of a desired book will find that book, even if the name of the book is not in the listing title.  So even an old guy  like me can search for a specific item.

In answer to your question, it doesnt matter.

[lamber9347]

@jmgrobe No, it no longer matters. People now tend to search by item name rather than specific categories. There are now item specifics which help with this. You don't even have to list a book under the books category, and it will still show up in a search of the books name. Best of luck to you....

[taylor_memorial]

One, relatively minor, PITA issue is that if you list ANYthing in a collectible category, you can't buy media rate postage from eBay. 

That said, categories are gone.
Genre would be one of two searchable item specifics that would replace what used to be a category.
Topic is the other one. 
You are able to choose multiple entries for both search fields.

Both of these search fields can be filtered by the customer and seldom do they offer customized entries unless the items offered are low in quantity.

It doesn't help that eBay offers only a few choices that make sense, but you can fill in you own. 

I have spent a lot of time trying to divide my store up into browsable categories based on focused interest as well. I don't think store categories are searchable but once they get there.

Hope this helps.