[Tony_Bacala]

eBay Category Changes: Toys & Hobbies

Anything in blue is being removed and merged into the category above it. All TF in one category, all Joe in one category, all Comic Book (Marvel and DC, and tons others) in one category now. Takes effect in May.

Thoughts?

[Tony_Bacala]

Found this. Looks like "Item Specifics" will replace the sub-cats, but if that data isn't filled out by the seller, items may not come up in a "drill down" search.

Introducing Item Specific sets for Brand, Age Level, Gender, Theme, & Year across most of Toys.

Add the Age Level and Brand item specific and use the recommended values to receive optimal visibility. If you already use item specifics such as Age or Manufacturer, please update your listings to the recommended sets for increased visibility.

Action Figures will be consolidated with categories being replaced by item specifics for Product Type, Size, Packaging, Brand, Theme, Age Level, Gender, and Year.

Add the recommended item specifics values to your listings before the category update to make sure your listings get moved correctly and receive optimal visibility for buyers.

Action Figures – By Brand categories are being consolidated.

Add the Genre item specific to your listings before the category update to make sure your listings get moved correctly and receive optimal visibility for buyers.

[hrothgars]

evilbay's subcategories have been significantly out of whack for a while. From the list there were lots of redundancies & this was not well organized to reflect the limited number of toy lines. They charged an extra 10 cents to list in each additional category, so they probably had some incentive for redundancies.

The new system moves to the opposite extreme. The new list of categories is too short. Signal-to-noise ratio will go down on searches. Instead of consolidating so extremely, they should at least continue to sort by "universe."

Currently, far too few sellers complete "Item Specifics," and the auto-populated options on drop-down menus leave much to be desired. They almost never include accurate descriptors by default.

[ToyAddict]

It's an epidemic! Everyone's removing the DC subcategory!!!! (Had to jab ya there Tony; just joking with you).

Part of my real-life job is to organize inventory into categories in a computer system and make it searchable. I see where they're going with this. Much easier to administer. And come on, they don't even have a Marvel Universe category; they're out of touch.

If an eBay seller wants to sell their stuff, they'll make sure they fill out the specifics or risk no sales or getting less for their auction than if they had advertised it properly. Takes a load of work off eBay and puts it on the seller. Sellers better learn how to spell!