How many SUB categories is reasonable?

[fishing4pennies]

As above.... how many sub-categories could be considered reasonable and sufficient?
I'm selling fishing tackle... I could go for endless sub-categories (esp regarding coarse fishing).. but this would not be beneficial to seller or buyer, assuming buyer has at least some idea what they are looking for..

I would guess at an absolute MAX of 4 ... surely anything beyond 4 levels should be covered by KEYWORD algorithms..?
If anything I would say max of 3 should be sufficient for both sellers and buyers...

Maybe 'category champions' who have knowledge in their particular field could volunteer (assuming unbiased and honest practice) to rationalise categories and sub-categories.. thus setting up a framework that they know that would rationally appeal to potential buyers and the way that buyers would search (as a seller you need to understand how buyer thinks before you can pitch.. yes?)

Half-baked idea cos it's Boxing Night and I've had a few.. ;-)

Any thoughts?

[lofty100e]

Are you talking about categories/sub-categories for the site, or for your own stores? From what I remember if you are showing them in your own store there is a limit to the number you can use, but then if you are a Selller+ account you have 5 stores to use.

I remember reading somewhere advice from one of the selling/tech "experts" that nothing should be further away than 3 mouse clicks as people allegedly "get bored" and go somewhere else. although none of the sites I use go with this "rule".

[fishing4pennies]

I remember reading somewhere advice from one of the selling/tech "experts" that nothing should be further away than 3 mouse clicks as people allegedly "get bored" and go somewhere else. although none of the sites I use go with this "rule".

Yep.. that's what I was getting at..
In my case for example:
Sports & Outdoors (Main)
Fishing (Primary Sub)
Hooks (Secondary Sub)
...thereafter KEYWORD search should be sufficient.

from thereon in a RIDICULOUS amount of sub-category permutations could be devolved from:
Coarse/Game/Sea
Barbed/Barbless
Eyed
Eyed - straight
Eyed - turned in
Spade-end - straight
Spade-end - turned out
Short/long shank
etc, etc, etc

In THIS example, surely after the MAIN categories I would hope that keyword search should be sufficient for viewer/buyer to locate what they are looking for.
On E*ay they have superfluous sub-categories for species(!)... all that serves to do is over-complicate the listing process (from Seller POV) and similarly for a potential buyer search.

I sincerely hope I don't offend anyone, but I have seen a request for a sub-category for 'Washing Lines'... I'm fairly sure that that would be superfluous without going into detailed analysis of 'why'..

In my case, I would sincerely hope that if someone is looking for hooks (per above example) they would have at least a basic idea of what kind of hooks they are looking for before they even start searching... iykwim

Obviously the same principle applies across the board.. so that say someone who has SPECIFIC knowledge in the field of say 'Stamps' or 'Brass Ornaments' would be best placed to devise the categories that would make the most logical sense to potential viewers/buyers

Not criticism... just thoughts (having seen what a semi-botched job E*ay have made of things.. and now the beast is far too big to get back into something resembling logic.. bit like local govt systems.. lol)

Marc :-)

ps. by way of comparison, I am using the same logic that the UK pioneered telecoms/rail infrastructure.. Europe followed UK (the pioneers) but were able to implement better systems having the advantage of seeing what did and didn't work in practice, thus not burdened by legacy problems (and widespread 'old' technology) and so enabled to start THEIR infrastructures from an advanced perspective.. that's why Europe has better telecoms/rail (etc) than the UK.
Hope this makes sense.. lol

[eBid_Andy]

Thank you for your input.

It generally depends on how popular you expect a sub category to be. If a customer is browsing a category/sub category it can be irritating to wade through multiple pages of non related listings, so in this case adding more sub categories will be a direct aid. Similarly adding a sub category where there is no or little interest is adds little benefit to browsers.