Need to add a listing to MORE than 2 categories

[rc-hobby-explosion]

One of the most crucial aspects of effective online selling is directing your customer to the products they want and need. In our business, we sell thousands of parts for radio control products. For some manufacturers, we may sell the full line of parts for a dozen or more of their mainline products (cars, trucks, boats, planes, etc.). Very often, these parts are compatible with numerous other models for that manufacturer. Thus, if we have a category of parts tailored to each main product, there may be 9 categories that all need to have the same listing display to ensure that the category reflects a true and complete listing of parts for that particular mainline product. However, we cannot find any way to add a listing to more than 2 categories, which simply will not work for us. So, before we abandoned eBay completely for other marketplaces, we wanted to make sure that there was not a workaround for this puzzling dilemma. Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

[wooden_flower]

The limit is 2 categories per item.

If you have category specific items, you could include a link to a few of the common parts in your listings. 

If you grow to listing enough to subscribe to a store, you could create a category for common items.

I think most people will search for items by the item name, not start with a general search category and browse - there are way too many items listed on eBay to make general browsing unlikely.

[rc-hobby-explosion]

We have an eBay store. Not sure why right now. From what you say, eBay defies all logic in proper product categorization for a company like ours. A common listing will not work in our industry. The way products cross-over is very complicated. A common category would confuse customers and increase their work trying to determine what the correct part needed is. If they can't find the name of a dedicated store category on our eBay store (which is easy), they will not be able to dig through some common category and know with any certitude that a product they see is for their specific model (I suppose we would have to go in and customer tailor every single product with numerous textual cross references, hoping that the customer would actually dig that deep to even see it). I can't imagine a customer selecting product after product and searching the details to see if the product was compatible.

Searching by name doesn't help because most customers don't know the exact name of the part. Plus, in our industry, the same type of part can be referenced in more than one way. Thus (and we know this from 20 years selling on our website), having categories set up by each specific mainline product that list ALL parts for that mainline item works best. Then customers can scroll through a category for their EXACT product until they find the part they need and they buy it. Plus, as they are scrolling, they get to see other items for their product that might be good to have. It is good structure and provides the customer the best shopping experience.

For the record, some customers do know their part numbers, which can easily be searched for. Those customers use their manuals to obtain the numbers. But that is really a small percentage, and doing it that way forces the customer who may need 20 parts to perform a slow, one-item-at-a-time location process. They don't get the benefit of seeing a dedicated list of parts for their product.

Apparently, eBay doesn't understand consumer behavior. Very disappointing as we will now be looking elsewhere. Thank you for confirming. That helps. We really appreciate it.

[wooden_flower]

Given that you have sold several hundred of a few of your items, some of them are easily found.  

If you want to sell here, you will find a way that works for you. Perhaps listing in the most common used categories for each item, etc. Be creative!

[rc-hobby-explosion]

The items we have sold here, and there aren't many, were more the type that have a higher probability of being searched for by product number. They aren't the main core of our parts department that I am addressing here. Even then, those products that did sell didn't sell quickly. We just throw them out there, hoping someone searches for the product number and eventually someone will. That doesn't work for day to day customers we are trying to serve who need many parts for a specific R/C truck, some of which are small and obscure. Small screw sets and other of the thousands of tiny parts we sell are not so easily located by just searching because there is a lot of similarity.

This is all way too much work. We're going to look into other options. If we go and dump thousands of products into a few loosely defined categories, we are going to get pounded with eBay contact forms with customers wanting to know what goes with what. When they gamble and don't ask, it will lead to returns. Again, just not a good fit for us. We need a flexible structure, like we have on our website, that works with the buying behaviors of our customer base. We love creative challenges, but this is more than we have the energy or time to figure out.

[wooden_flower]

Some products are just not a good fit for eBay.  Maybe selling just a subset of your products, where the use is clearly defined would work.  I’m sorry you can’t make it work - I like to see more fun products here 🙂