Sorry to say this, but it shure is a real mess the way you AW guys have set the categories !! For a Free software, that's OK, but when you begin to charge, I think you will need to improve it. The ideal was WE set & chose our own categories.
Are you planning to change the way you are doing it ?
I believe that we will be changing the way this functions in the future, however I'm not sure when that might be. The categories are designed to pick up auctions that might fit under a category -- anything that it is not sure of, it files into Unknown.
If I don't have control over the category names in my storefront then I can't create a store that's easy for my customers to navigate and hopefully to buy my products... These auction type categories are really insufficient... Why can't we put our regular storefront items in categories we create and name, and then have our auction items go to a more generalized "Auctions" category? People might browse around an "auctions" category, but they aren't going to spend much time looking at my regular storefront items if my navagational categories aren't more clear and precise... I'm new to the Storefronts, but I also see this as a serious problem...
Thanks... Rick
[ edited by gladesman11 on Jun 30, 2002 06:58 AM ]
If you have storefront categories that you think should be included, please suggest them here. I will be happy to compile the list and pass it to engineering for consideration.
I can put together a list of category names, but they will apply only to the types of items I sell... For instance, one of the products I sell will be decals... But I have different kinds of decals... Some are permanent stick... some are static cling... some relate to specific topics... I'd like to divide these things up into categories in my store with names I create... How can I get someone to check out any area in my store if it is titled as an auction category? I may not even want to always have auction items listed in my storefront... I may want only my regular fixed price items there to keep the store front clean and uncluttered by the variety of auction items I list... That's great, but the names still make it look like an auction venue... If we can name our folders as we like, why can't we mirror those in our storefront category names?
I agree with Rick
The ideal was we to name and pick the categories' names.
Other software providers, with a Showcase/Shop, have solved the problem by allowing store ownwers to have what they call " predefined searches " - They allow us to set several " predefined searches" linked with key words. For exemple, if I want a category named " Hotel Luggage labels ", I define a search for that category by the keywords " Hotel label " ( I then must have the keywords on evey item title ). BUT THEN AW must improve the Search engine. As near as eBay search method as possible.
posted on July 7, 2002 02:13:50 AM
Another idea is to use similar catagories to eBay as most people are familiar with them. Also a list of which combinations produce which catagory would be indespensible. I've poked around and found a few I use. Collectibles>Science>Sea Shell for mother of pearl beads etc.
posted on July 8, 2002 03:48:14 PM
Unfortunately some of the categories which make sense on Ebay show up in the storefront as "other" or "vintage"...with no explanation. I have gone through 2000 items trying to narrow the descriptions so visitors won't see 200 categories. It is still a mess as long as ebay auctions are listed separately. Why can't they go into a file called "Ebay"? I agree that this is something you can put up with while it is free but I would not pay for it yet...
posted on July 27, 2002 06:21:41 PM
Well I have paid for the service! Im trying to open my store so I can sell Performance Parts for import cars. I need my catagories to be Car specific. I need to be able to create my own catagories FAST! Can anybody help me?
posted on July 28, 2002 05:47:12 AM
I have a similar problem for my store which sells sports cards. It's easy enough to list cards under individual sports but a customer would literally have to sort through hundreds if not thousands of items without "customized categories". There are tons of types of sports cards such as rookies, inserts, parallels, short prints, autographs, game-memorabilia cards etc.
These are just a few sub-categories but ,as it is now ,all those have to be lumped together under one basic category (ie. baseball). This is very impractical and does not allow for easy browsing by the customer. I too would very much like to see us able to create the same categories in our storefront as we do for our inventory folders. Also an increase in the number of folders/categories would be beneficial as well.
posted on July 29, 2002 06:15:20 AM
Under 'Collectibles-Historical-...', there really OUGHT to be 'American' or 'United States' ... you've got almost every other conceivable thing listed there except for things that are 'patriotic/america'!!... ... ... also, i have some pocket watches listed, and they're showing up [on the left side/categories] as simply 'pocket' ... would be overall a lot better if the categories on the left show as the main category [we chose]/rather than a long list of sub-categories; and of course better yet would be the main category showing, then if the shoppers click on it, would show them sub-categories we have items in. ... ... ... yep, the Categories section of AW storefront galleries really could use improvements ... i've been working with mine all morning and it still looks messy/confusing for a shopper to view it. ...thanks ...
posted on July 31, 2002 11:11:27 AM
If you know some html direct your customer to your own page where you have predetermined searches for varios items that they can click on encourage them to bookmark your search page and navigate by using the back button to return to your page. In this way you can organize it however you wish using specific keywords in various titles. Unfortunately search only uses the title field so this limits your number of keywords to work with but it is still helpful I've considered having my search page as a frame around the AW Storfront much like a toolbar but have been too busy to write the code.
[ edited by davebraun on Jul 31, 2002 11:12 AM ]
