Arranging items in an eBay store

[ducks2k]

In the "Store Category" guidelines, they say "think like a buyer", and then proceed to implement something that is nearly useless to buyers.  Imagine walking into a grocery store and seeing the shelves laid out price "low to high" or "best match", when what you were looking for was items from a shopping list (or even just browsing).

I can't find a trace of information about something like "alphabetical by title".  Knowing how I batch uploaded a group of items, I can assert that "listed newest" is not a precise sort, because I upload them in alphabetical order, and the store shows them in semi-random "listed newest".

For decades (TurboLister), I've been aware that the listing servers get the workload distributed between them and item numbers are wildly different between successive items.

As far as I can tell, the current store implementation lets me divide my stuff into 3 layers of categories and manually arrange the categories, but that within a leaf category, the limited set of user sorts takes over.  The absolutely worthless "best match" appears to be the default (there is not a "best match" unless one is doing a "search")

I guess I am just venting, but I would appreciate any thoughts on the subject.

[mr_lincoln]

Hi @ducks2k ,

Keep Store Categories simple to start with, each main category can have sub categories ... here are some suggestions for main categories:

Kitchen

Household

Toys

Tools

Books

Jewelry

Lets say you specialize more in the area of Tools, you could then have sub categories like:

Power Tools

Hand Tools

Vintage Tools

Metric Tools

This is just for you to organize your items better and allow Buyers to click a category they are interested in so all those items are shown to them.  Store categories are NOT used in any internet or eBay Searches.

Regards,

Mr. L

[evry1nositswindy]

Since you sell stamps, categorize them by how you or your buyer would want to look at them.  This is on for when someone clicks on your store and they can search your categories.  It does not change eBay's search results.

Ideas:  Stamps 1920-1925, Animal Stamps, Smokey the Bear stamps, etc.  Once you create your categories, place the items in the categories with the bulk list tool.  

[mr_lincoln]

@evry1nositswindy, @ducks2k 

Duck stamps ...

[ducks2k]

so, how is this relevant to the question?  I understand the levels of store categories, but it is the order within the individual category that I am (complaining) about. 

I sell collector stamps - actually only a very specialized group within that broad category.  Stamp collectors use catalogs, and are MUCH more likely to be browsing my selections by issue order - essentially year issued - than they are to be interested in sorting by price.  Price is something you compare after you have found the issue you are looking for.  There is no shop-by-price relationship between one issue and its neighbor from a different year.   So, for illustration "Alabama Duck Stamp 1989" has absolutely no interchangeability with "Alabama Duck stamp 1990" - not on price, not on recenty-listed.

The buyer's first question would be - which stamps in this (Store) category is the seller offering?  And, compared to what he sees, which of them does he need?  Then he looks at the condition and price being offered.   I can arrange the eBay item titles into a nice sortable order, but there is no way that I can see for the buyer to see them in that order.

[evry1nositswindy]

I thought you were asking about store categories since you said eBay store.  I don't know a way to organize listings on eBay other than the options they give.  Sorry.

[fern*wood]

I think they are just describing the categories you set up for your listings--nothing to do with pricing or best match which are ebay sorts.   My store categories are awful and definitely need work, but I just never seem to get around to updating them.

[ducks2k]

Yeah....., but then what?  The "Smokey the Bear" leaf category (if I added it down from my current "Fire Prevention Stamps" category, would contain 40 items, and these 40 are displayed in a random order, not organized the way I, or the buyer would care to see them.  Price and listing date sorts are irrelevant to this category.

That then also leads to the other buyer hassle (which I admit, I have not fully investigated yet).  The question is "Let's say I have 3 levels of Store Category -- can I (as a buyer) see all the offerings on a level 2 category as a single block of listings?"   (poorly worded)   If I have first level GroupI, Group2 and Group3, and let's say Group2 contains SubgroupA and SubgroupB, which then have things like LeafCatA1, LeafCatA2...  and those leaf categories contain the actual items.  The question is: if the buyer clicks on  SubGroupA, does he see all of the items of LeafCatA1 followed by the items from LeafCatA2, or does he have to click on those leaf categories separately.

I have not been able to find a sufficiently complex store to examine.  Interestingly, the big guys in the collector stamps area don't seem to bother with store categories at all - they just make the buyer use searches.  Maybe that tells me something...

[evry1nositswindy]

@fern*wood You are probably right.  So many different ways to use the word category.  Yes, eBay really screwed up categories several months ago.  By removing some sub-categories and lumping everything together, they made it harder rather than easier for buyers/sellers.

[d-k_treasures]

MUCH harder.

And now, when you click Sellers Other Items from a listing(I never go into an ebay store), and they have a store, the view gets switched from my default list view to gallery view. It doesn't happen if you don't have a store - the list view stays set. And I also noticed that going in that way with gallery view, it takes longer to start displaying the items.

[ducks2k]

I noticed the list/gallery thing too, but assumed it was something I could fix somewhere.  I am also having fits trying to re-arrange my store categories to test various things.  Edits of store categories do NOT happen immediately (20 minutes so far) and trying to add a subcategory gets an error of "pending request - try back later".  Also, adding a sub-category to an existing category seems to require that all items in that now-parent category have to be moved out before proceeding.  Moving out the 40 items was part of the "add category" step, but it took around 10 minutes for the items to be moved out.  10 minutes after that, the "add sub-category" still wasn't complete enough to use.  Obviously, these operations have a very low priority on the servers.

[ducks2k]

Six months later....  Ebay IS doing at least some work in the store area.  I just noticed that a trivial-to-fix bug has been fixed.  The fundamental issue still remains.  The 300 seller-defined store categories structure fits my 5,000 item inventory quite well -- I am currently using 182 store categories, and can probably effectively use all 300. 

The problem still is that within an individual store category (in my case, each has  5-100 closely related items), the default sort of the individual items is "best match", and given what I can find out about the "best match" algorithm, it is totally meaningless within in a store category display.  The same applies to all of the other sorts available ("newly listed"...).  Any stamp collector who looks at my store and shops by store category would 100% want to see each category sorted in a non-random order - I still suggest "alphabetical by item title".  Someday.......

[simply-the-best-for-you]

I get what you're saying & you're absolutely right, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that becoming avl any time soon. 

[jhazz1]

How do you add tags?