I'm usually a jewelry person but I have this matching scarf and jewelry case by Patricia Nash that I just tried listing as a lot together. I figured it was worth paying 25 cents to include the appropriate categories for both (er, well, 'wallets' was the closest I could find for the leather jewelry case). Anyway, after doing all the work to create this listing, it hits me with this dumb notification:
Okay, two things. 1. I DID select 'Clothing, Shoes & Accessories' as the main category for both items. Look:
2. Why do either of these items even require authentication?? -I have a Patricia Nash purse and yes it's a decent quality brand. But to my understanding, it is just 'middle' tier, at most. I mean if we were to compare dollars to dollars, a Patricia Nash bag is FAR closer to one from Walmart than to an actual luxury brand bag like Chanel. And I'm only listing this NWT combo for $48. Is it seriously going to have to make a stop at an authenticator???? Like if I eliminate the second category or choose one that makes the red bar go away, does this dumb jewelry case still going to need authentication?
EDIT: I just did an eBay search for 'Patricia Nash.' Even the highest price listing is not an Authenticity Guarantee item. So why the heck is the listing tool giving me this annoying bullsh?
@wastingtime101 wrote:
Not sure what triggered the Authenticity Guarantee warning without further examination, but I'd ignore it since the "wallets" category wasn't the right one to begin with.
I agree it's tough to find an appropriate category for that type of item. The 2 most relevant categories are:
Travel > Travel Accessories > Other Travel Accessories
Jewelry & Watches > Jewelry Care, Design & Repair > Jewelry Boxes, Organizers & Packaging
I'd lean towards the first category since that item is more of a travel piece, but that comment is made before doing any kind of research.
This brings me back around to the Product Research (formerly Terapeak) tool. This is a great example kyle@ebay to support feedback you passed along earlier this year (link). I will re-post my request here with hopes you can pass it along again with this use case.
Gurlcat is already using the second category since it's bundled lot with a scarf, which means with 2 relevant categories for the jewelry item, it's important to use the best-performing category. Currently Product Research makes it difficult to find that category.
I would like [the Product Research team] to add a column that identifies category(ies) where items are listed.
There are many times when multiple categories are relevant to an item, and having that data visible in Product Research will show sellers which categories are performing best for those items. In addition, listings older than 90 days usually cannot be accessed, so we don't have visibility to the category through that path.
I do realize there is a category filter and I use it, but it's not the same experience to filter categories one by one and compare data as it is to see the category in a column next to every item when "all categories" is selected. The data is there, but it's not in an easily readable/accessible format for research purposes. The entire point of Product Research is to use it as a research tool and I'd like to see this change make things more efficient for sellers.
I'd also like to renew this feedback:
At the bottom of the results page it just says "page 1" or "page 2", but it would be helpful it it said "page 1 of X" or if it gave some indicator of how many results were pulled.
Ideally, at the top it would say the number of results just like it does in regular eBay search.
Use case: A seller searched for a competitor's item but couldn't find it in Product Research so they asked me for assistance. When I viewed the same search I found the item appeared on page 3 of results, but it wasn't intuitive for that seller to realize there was more than 1 page of results.
In total, there were 6 pages of results - 295 items. You could only determine that by clicking the arrows forward until you got to the last page and the arrow grayed out.
If Product Research gave a better indicator of how many results were pulled upfront, it would help sellers to determine when they should try different key words or filters when the results are numerous, or when they needed to view multiple pages of results.
Hey @wastingtime101 and @gurlcat thanks for sharing this example! I'll be glad to pass this experience along!
Kyle,
