posted on October 1, 2000 10:47:49 PM new
Hey there,
A question popped into my head while I was browsing different site's category listings. Is there such thing as "Too Many Categories?"
I think having a lot of categories is good for buyers browsing for listings, but can be cumbersome to sellers trying to figure out where to place their item.
So, if anyone can help me out and add some insight to this topic, that would be great. Thanks!
I operate DutchBid.com and we have chosen to only add subcategories when it is necassary. As a bidder there is nothing more frustrating than a bunch of empty categories, so we have chosen to add more only when needed. eBay certainly didn't start out with over two thousand categories!
I have noticed that a lot of sites will add thousands of categories at their startup and then use those numbers to pretend that they are bigger than they really are. These are also the same sites that count each item of dutch auction when tallying the totals on their stats pages. Just another way of deceiving bidders that I don't agree with!
Gmer, are you starting a site? If so, share it with us. I would love to check it out.
posted on October 2, 2000 11:56:54 AM new
Dutchbid, very interesting indeed, very interesting. I checked out your site and oregonman said it correctly it looks like kermit the frog a lonely frog.
posted on October 9, 2000 02:21:50 PM new
Yes, I do think there can be too many categories. Maybe it depends on what you sell. At free sites you can try different categories through trial and error but at eBay it can be an expensive experiment.
I think that many buyers use the search engines though so if you have a strong title and description then the category is not as important.
posted on October 13, 2000 07:39:48 AM new
I don't think the catagory size is the problem, it's the clarity of what FITS in the catagory that is confusing. For example - pretend I have a ceramic platter I want to either buy OR sell. It's a fish shape, made in the 1970's by a very reputable french company. I go to find it for sale OR to list it for sale - where do I look? I think it would be fantastic if the sites had some sort of HELP menu that would give out that type of information.
