I Vote for updated Categories!
While the rest of the country is busy voting for the new administration and measures, the Bonanza team is busy with our own initiatives. One of them is updating our categories to be more in line with eBay's categories. We are also in the process of updating all of our traits to be more in line with what eBay has for item traits. If you are wondering why, well, for several reasons. One, it is going to make importing from eBay a much more streamlined process for our sellers (If you have ever imported from eBay then you surely are aware of items coming over missing key traits and such) and make shopping easier for buyers. Secondly, eBay probably spent billions of dollars figuring out which are the best categories and traits for sellers and buyers and there really is no need to reinvent the wheel (thank you eBay). Thirdly, we had an election at our office and the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of this measure. Plus any reasons Bill wants to add (always give myself an out).
During that process you may notice that an item for two were moved from one category to another or in some cases that your previous category was removed. In both cases we will notify you directly in the edit view of the listing. We expect the process to take around two weeks give or take.
Updated, 8pm, 11/6/12, adding a sceen shot of the message you will see if your items category has been updated
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37 responses to I Vote for updated Categories!
It doesn’t worry me one way or the other, but I thought “most” of the sites outside of Ebay were trying to be different – not looking over the fence so to speak and copying what the other guy is doing.
With categories – it may not be possible to invent the wheel, but you have many sellers here who have “customised” categories – it may be possible for some of those to be used – and to make “Bonanza” different like most want.
I don’t import to Ebay or from them, and apart from traffic, they are certainly not the benchmark that I hope other sites are aspiring to. And their business practices are certainly not ones I want to adopt for my business at any stage.
Not trying to step on any toes – just wish everyone wasn’t trying to copy them for anything.
Jules
Valid points Jules, thank you for sharing. We actually have used eBay’s main categories since day one, we just have not updated them in a while
seem to remember wayyyy back when that a few of us (ie Elizabeth and myself) had suggested following ebay and doing it before there were millions of listings
and we spent countless hours running back and forth to ebay to capture information.
so now to find out if our cats have been changed we’ll have to open every listing to check? If that’s so isn’t there a way of sending us a note indicating which ones were changed? And will all traits have to be re-done? Only trying to plan ahead for how much time this will take
We miss Elizabeth
You will not need to do a thing Mary. Your listings will remain the same. You will receive a notice on your listing (on the edit page) that will state that your items category has been updated. I have updated the blog to include that message.
do what you will BUT PLEASE do it after January.
AND don’t make us have to go and correct, change and fix everything manually afterward because of glitches etc.
I have a question. If the categories are changed will that change the urls for each listing?
Nope. URL’s will stay the same.
I just went through 500 listings with 200 more to do and have items to list. Some items had strange code which I removed and many were not even in the correct custom booth category, I really am not going to do that again right before the holidays. So I agree, do as you will sure ok with me but not right before the holidays please
Please contact us at support so we can assist you with any trouble you are having with your booth.
Yeah… It seems that many of us sellers have been fine tuning our stuff getting ready for the holidays…..
Do you think it’s prudent to make these kind of changes just 7 weeks before X-mas?
Seems like you guys want to shoot yourselves and us sellers in the foot.
It would certainly be a concern if it were something that would hinder a buyer but this update is not the case. This is actually going to make it easier for buyers to find your items.
Does this mean you are going to give us back the dolls and bears category?
Sounds reasonable to me
I was going to ask the same thing as LadyBugzDolls above. Dolls and Bears, and Business and Industrial are two categories that definitely need to be put back into place, as they were before.
Yes and yes
This is really good news for sellers of antiques & collectibles.
I would also really love to be able to put items into two of my booth categories. Ex.
Oh Mark, I have it under control but thanks. I really did stop wonder why and just took care of it. I do think updating categories is a great idea as there are quite a few things I never which category might be best as it just does not fit. Sooo you will let us know if we have listings in a category that will cease to exist, never mind found your answer. LOL I was just concerned because of holiday shopping.
It took several years for Ebay to finally get the jewelry category right. We need those same changes here. I am tired of searching in the “Fine Jewelry” category and finding more gold plated jewelry than real solid gold 10k 14k 18k, etc. jewelry. Gold plated jewelry should not be in the fine jewelry category, it should be in fashion jewelry. In fact, I rarely make purchases in jewelry here anymore because of that.
So I guess this is why on one occasion when I had u guys list an item to eBay it ended up in a totally different category AND there was an item trait stuck on there that had NOTHING to do with my item! And I can’t get rid of it!! Then another item listed twice instead of once…and they can’t help! Something DEFINITELY needs to be done, THAT’S for sure!! I just hope the tweaking doesn’t cause our categories to disappear totally!! I still haven’t finished tweaking everything from last week when I had to have Judy help me with why my items weren’t showing up on Google Shopping.
Mark, someone asked above if we could be notified, and you responded that a notice would show in the listing on the edit page.
Is there not an easier way to do it? That means opening every listing, just to see if it needs repair. That would drive some sellers batty, and some would probably leave. No one wants to go through ALL their listings every time there’s a change or update, when they could be spending their time more productively by listing new items, or promoting current ones.
Oh, and I like being different too!
Mind you, I don’t use eB, so it doesn’t affect me if the cats match or not. I guess the main benefit for me would be, if it made things easier to find for newbie buyers.
Is this change the reason why you can’t look at items in a category any more? Only the first “page” shows up. It is impossible to browse items by category. Will this be fixed by the time all the category reorganization is done?
Not sure I understand your question but if you forward it to support then we can have a look (sounds not normal).
If I’m understanding this correctly, in order for us to know if an item of ours has been moved to a different catagory is to go into the ‘edit listing’ area and we’ll see the notice.
With over 1,200 items, I, and probably many others, rarely edit listings. So if that’s how we are notified, many will never know.
There’s got to be a better way.
Sellers are able to use the batch editor to filter based on categories. So you spot one category that has changed, you can use the BE to find and edit them if you like. Might be a good idea for us to post which were edited when all is said and done.
Is this part of an overall (secret) goal to merge with Ebay? Why else would we want to be more like them? I have only been selling online for about 1 year, and I chose Bonanza to set up my shop because of it’s claim to be different. I have heard many horror stories about selling on Ebay.
No secrets here Imhnh53. It is part of our plan to bring you more buyers and more sales and that ain’t no secret
After reinstating Dolls and Bears, how about
Coins and Currency?
Working on it
There should be a category in fashion/accessories for children not separating boys or girls.
Reinstating Dolls & Bears is the best news I’ve had this year…hallalujah!
We didn’t get an answer to “can this wait until January”.
Not quite sure what you mean by using the Batch Editor to check on changed categories.
Is this updating already in progress or upcoming?
When you identify a listing that has had its category changed, you can then use your batch editor to filter all items that were in the old category and edit them as you like.
For those checking the edit item view for changes, while you are there, please check for any unchecked tags. Approve any you feel are appropriate. Each one of those unchecked boxes represents a pending tag for which someone is hoping to receive tokens. Don’t forget to SAVE…
Does this mean that you will take my coin shop out of the lost archives of collectibles??? Oh Pretty Please with Sugar on Top!!
Thanks everyone for your comments. If you need additional assistance make sure to contact us at [email protected]
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