For Your Consideration

[flavors]

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I need help please. Maybe it's me not understanding how to set the stores & categories, but I am having a hard time with the Home & Garden one.

Home & Garden is a BROAD category by itself. And my issue is that I have to choose a sub-category...let's say Kitchen. And doing so LIMITS my Home & Garden store to be a store for Kitchen items ONLY...instead of a Home&Garden Store only that includes Kitchen items.
The Towels and Potholders can be a Parent Category in ones Home&GardenStore/KitchenCategory/TowelsPotholdersParentCategory, so that is not a problem.

But besides Kitchen, there are lots of other categories within Home&Garden that aren't a match with Kitchen for example.

Let's say I have a decorative item for the kitchen, and a decorative throw pillow for the bedroom, and a decorative one for the patio area. Then I would open a Home & Garden Store + Decorative Category + Kitchen/Bedroom/Outdoors Sub-Categories + Parent Sub-Categories, right?
But then, what happens with the Pans & Pots? I can't list them under Home&Garden/Decoration/Kitchen/Pans&Pots.
Nor the Cooking Books.
Nor the Bed Sheets.
Nor so many items that are for Decoration but not for Kitchen Decoration, or are for the Home & Garden but not for Decoration, or that are for the Kitchen but not for Decoration.

Being that one can open up to 5 stores, if 1 goes for Home&Garden Kitchen, another for Home&Garden Bedding, another for Home&Garden Decorative, another for Books, and another for Collectibles, and what about all the other categories that fall in Home&Garden like Candles or Bathroom curtains but that can not be a sub-category or Parent category within Kitchen or Bedding?

I think that the main Store's choice should be Home&Garden but then not limited to Kitchen or Bathroom, etc. but to the broader and more general Indoors or Outdoors only. Then, from each of those 2 Categories one chooses the Sub-Category whether Decorative, Kitchen, Bathroom, Patio, Healthcare, etc., and one then creates the Parent Category within those choices.
This way, one could list pans and dishtowels and decorative and cooking books and utensils and bakerware and jams, etc. under Kitchen, and throw pillows, and curtains, and decorative, and lamps, and mirrors, and storage baskets under Bedroom.
That is, all under a same roof, well divided or categorized by room. Because a soap or a towel is a well different kind when for a bathroom or for a kitchen.

Maybe seems that I am suggesting the same that is how it is already sub-divided now in the options. But it is not the same.
And would probably make it easier for buyers to navegate to what they are looking for.

Thank you

[flavors]

Me again, maybe this adapted example would explain better what I mean.
If there is a Store Category for Hardware, then the Sub-categories would be broken down to chose among Nails, Bolts, Screws, T-Screws, Cable Caps, Hammers, Rackets, Glues, and so on.
Needles to say, 5 Stores wouldn’t be enough nor representative of the Hardware that one sells.
One can’t open a store for Hardware/Glues and then add the Parent Category for Hammers or Nails, or vice versa.
If the Sub-Categories were down to Tools as a sub-category, then one can may add Parent Categories for Nails, Bolts, Screws, T-Screws, Cable Caps, Hammers, Rackets, Glues, and so on.
And a sub-category for Heavy Duty Tools would allow for Parent Categories like Lawn Mowers, instead of being Lawn Mowers the sub-category.

While flowers, shrubs, fruit trees, weeds, grass, birdhouses, rackets, and pesticides are related to Gardening, to have to choose a Sub-Category for Flowers, then another store for Fruit Trees, and another yet for Grass, it is not really a Gardening but a Flowers one, or a Fruit Trees one, or a Grass one.

Again, while Mango Trees and Avocado and Papaya and Macadamia Nuts and Olive Trees are all Trees, I think that the option for the Store should be for a Tree Store where all kind of trees are sold. And not a Nuts Tree Store only, which leaves out the other trees…unless one opens a store for each tree in the sub-category.

Hope you may understand my example. Thanks a lot.

[sidthelamp]

well if i was to break down all the parts for my lamps i would not have enough stores or categorys so they all go in 1 store and one cat dont over complicate matters use your five free stores and list in the cats appropreate you can also list items and you dont have to add them in your store,

[flavors]

Well, then I'll list all my different Collectibles under my Kitchen store...or the 2009 manufactured pans and latest bedding collection in my Collectibles store.
If I could have a Home&Garden Store not limited to being for Bathroom items ONLY, or for Kitchen items ONLY, or for whatever inside a home & garden item ONLY, then it would be feasible to have all fit in one same logical place, grouped thanks to the use of the Parent Category.
But in this particular case, the sub-category in reality is more a Parent Category.
Should I list the birdhouse that goes in the garden, and the shower curtain that goes in the bathroom in the kitchen section, just because the Home&Garden store is limited to 1 set of items and excludes all the others?

If I am driving buyers to my store, I would like them to see what I have for sale in an organized and logical manner. And that they could see ALL that I have to offer.
If I list items out of my store...not added to my store, then those buyers coming to my store won't know I have this and that more items listed.

I have told a customer to come here to my store for Holiday items and Gifts. Only thing that now I don't think that she is going to look for Christmas Ornaments under Kitchen Decoration or Books. Less yet is funny for me that I move her from seeing my items grouped within the store I have somewhere else, to come here not to find them unless she does a search throughout the whole site, and hopefully spots mines among the others offered by other Sellers.
From a strategic point...mmm

[astral276]

While I don't deny your request has merit - there is no reason a store should be so narrowly defined as a single listing - the store category/subcategory is just that. It is the category/subcategory under which the store itself is created. If you want to list a miscellanea of item types under the main category of Home and Garden then select Other as the subcategory and read that as All or General. When you fill your store you can define your own categories and subcategories into which to place your items in a manner that seems logical to you.

[deltadelta48]

I think there is sometimes the desire to have everything neat and tidy in little categories and sub categories. HOWEVER, when you do that you limit the number of shoppers. Ideally what you want to do is make us go thru dozens of your goodies, not just go to Pillow, or whatever. If you break it down to many sub categories people get tired of opening and closing them, and give up.

Think of going to a big sells everything store. You go in for aluminum foil, you walk past the tshirts, oh, a sale, you look at the craft items, you stop at the apples and remember you need some, you look at the houseplants, take a few nicely priced ones. By the time you are finished, gosh the cart is full. You only came in for foil!!

Thats what you want offer to potential buyers, who do not have the energy to go to the foil store, the food store, the fruit store, the tshirt store, the plant store, they want to look thru broad categories and be delighted and buy something they did not think they needed.

I would not be delighted to see a whole store dedicated to lamp parts and every little thing in a sub category! If someone wants to search for a very specific thing, they can advance search for it. But don't subject everyone to your stuff sub cated to a fair-thee-well. You lose more people than you can.

Think in very broad categories for the stores: home furnishings, stationery, whatever, and have maybe only 5 sub categories (one can be 'everything else, one of the categories can be called that).


Hard part is finding the happy medium and setting your stores up to include multiple items, but not too many sub cats so people get sick up opening things up. I think

[flavors]

Thanks for the advice and suggestions. The Home&Garden/OTHER would be my solution...also will apply OTHER to my Collectibles Store where it wasn't my case to be stuck under Avon (or any other precise sub-cat) as sub-cat. I have automatically avoided selecting OTHER maybe because a vague connotation was affecting my reasoning...until astral's ALL or GENERAL woke me up. Thanks!

[deltadelta48]

Well, then I'll list all my different Collectibles under my Kitchen store...or the 2009 manufactured pans and latest bedding collection in my Collectibles store.
If I could have a Home&Garden Store not limited to being for Bathroom items ONLY, or for Kitchen items ONLY, or for whatever inside a home & garden item ONLY, then it would be feasible to have all fit in one same logical place, grouped thanks to the use of the Parent Category.
But in this particular case, the sub-category in reality is more a Parent Category.
Should I list the birdhouse that goes in the garden, and the shower curtain that goes in the bathroom in the kitchen section, just because the Home&Garden store is limited to 1 set of items and excludes all the others?

If I am driving buyers to my store, I would like them to see what I have for sale in an organized and logical manner. And that they could see ALL that I have to offer.
If I list items out of my store...not added to my store, then those buyers coming to my store won't know I have this and that more items listed.

I have told a customer to come here to my store for Holiday items and Gifts. Only thing that now I don't think that she is going to look for Christmas Ornaments under Kitchen Decoration or Books. Less yet is funny for me that I move her from seeing my items grouped within the store I have somewhere else, to come here not to find them unless she does a search throughout the whole site, and hopefully spots mines among the others offered by other Sellers.
From a strategic point...mmm

But bottom line is that you have 11 listings, so it will be very easy for the customer to find the Christmas ornaments by using the gallery photos. Maybe a problem if there are 4000 listings, not so much under a couple of hundred. I still think you should encourage customers to look around and look at everything you have, not just go to one area. So be careful about having too many subcategories.

[flavors]

Thank you Delta. Yes, I have 11 listings now because I am a newbie and it's taking me very long to list each one due to some kind of incompatibility that I am finding with the lister, that at time of clicking Review scrambles what orderly described!...and I have to start all over again, and again, and again. One I had to try 10 times until I was able to at least keep some paragraph together...even though the Sh&h/Payment/Returns show at the very top of the listing.
When the listings are more than 1 page long it's unlikely that buyers will click past the 2nd page. So I do prefer to have them grouped.
Myself, as a buyer, I prefer to choose a Seller's category to look into. Is a shortcut that saves me time and the annoyance of browsing through lots of items I am not interested at all.
Needless to say, all suggestions and advices are a good thing and I do keep them as possibilities to eventually try or to implement. Thank you very much!

[deltadelta48]

Thank you Delta. Yes, I have 11 listings now because I am a newbie and it's taking me very long to list each one due to some kind of incompatibility that I am finding with the lister, that at time of clicking Review scrambles what orderly described!...and I have to start all over again, and again, and again. One I had to try 10 times until I was able to at least keep some paragraph together...even though the Sh&h/Payment/Returns show at the very top of the listing.
When the listings are more than 1 page long it's unlikely that buyers will click past the 2nd page. So I do prefer to have them grouped.
Myself, as a buyer, I prefer to choose a Seller's category to look into. Is a shortcut that saves me time and the annoyance of browsing through lots of items I am not interested at all.
Needless to say, all suggestions and advices are a good thing and I do keep them as possibilities to eventually try or to implement. Thank you very much!

I have heard of listing problems like yours and have had it happen to me if I copied and pasted into the description box from somewhere else. Sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes, like this morning, the listing erased itself, I had to restart again and again. But once that first was listed and I used it as a template for other 7 items, it worked fine. Might be a glitch or a reluctance to accept some invisable code.
You might want to try either copying a similiar listing (using the "list similiar" option) or typing description directly into new listing form. If it still gives you trouble, contact support.

Page placement does matter as you say. But remember that page placement is ever changing as items close within that subcategory and category. The 50 items I look at today in a certain category, will be 50 new ones tomorrow. It is an every moving column, which is why we warn sellers not to use "run until sold" because listings never move from bottom. Never get seen. This happens whether items are in categories or subcategories which can range from a few items to thousands so there is a chance you stuff will get lost in general cat with those items closing tomorrow. Depending on how the buyer sorts.

Yes, assuring you are on page one by using subcategories would help, but as those sub cats fill up with more items, your stuff may be on page two. Or if you added 10 of similiar quite close together, yes the block of items you listed my push your stuff to page 2. Again it is every changing as items close. Hard to assure you will always be on page one, even if ebid agrees to hundreds of new subcats so that every item has its own subcat. People create this sort of thing when they use lots of sub cats in their stores, but that gets tiresome for some buyers. If I go into a seller's stuff, see 25 categories/sub cats, with one item in each, no thank you. I will not sort on those. I will look at the group via the gallery photo because open/close, open/close 25 times does not appeal to me. I want to see everything without that fuss even if it means I go to page 2.

But everyone searches differently, I am sure your zeroing in on the item you want and my wanting to windowshop a group, is not what everyone does. Maybe other members will let us know how they search, what saves them search time (cat/sub cats) and what does not?

Hope you get the listing business sorted out, listing is usually very fast and troublefree. Might need a little tweek to sort it out. Good luck on ebid.