Folksy Categories

49 Comments
Posted by admin on 5:09 pm

Hello. A while back we said we were reviewing the categories on Folksy. And we did. We did some user testing and developed a ‘taxonomy’ (a list of meaningful terms) to describe the stuff on Folksy effectively. But it’s incomplete and we want your help in reviewing where we have got to and in helping to complete it. We currently have seventeen categories and there exists a lot of overlap between them (for example ‘papergoods’ and ‘books and notepads’) and they’re not ‘logical’ (weddings is an ‘event’, distinct from the other categories which are objects). So it needs reworking.

Our criteria for the work is that each category…

  • Must be meaningful – must have mainstream use / currency
  • Must represent a ’significant’ number of items
  • Must be well ‘bounded’ or at least minimise the need for items to be in more than one category

Here is our draft of categories. Our rationale is based on the categories representing ‘objects’:

  • Clothing. Here “children’s clothes can be a subcategory rather than existing in the category “Children’s” as it could now.
  • Furniture. We don’t have a lot of furniture on Folksy but it’s a very distinct category, the only item which has been difficult to place has been ‘mirror’, which could be in homeware.
  • Bags, purses, wallets. There are a *lot* of bags, purse and wallets on Folksy and we thought they deserved their own category. As they are not part of a ‘family’ of objects we needed a descriptive, literal category.
  • Soaps and Oils. A very distinct set of items in terms of their materials.
  • Homeware. Potentially very big but it’s a category that seems to be widely understood and used by High Street and online retailers.
  • Materials. Obvious.
  • Toys and Dolls. We found that there are lots of different types of toy on Folksy and the term itself is contentious (you can’t call a toy a toy unless it meets strict guidelines) but it is a very well known grouping and our testers couldn’t come up with a better title. Can you?
  • Gadgets and Geekery. There are things which fall outside of
  • Stationery. Replacing Papergoods and “books and notepads”.
  • Art and Photography. Replaces just ‘Art’.

The categories we’ve really struggled with are Jewellery and Accessories. Jewellery is Folksy’s biggest category. Jewellery accounts for over 30% of all items listed. However, there’s a *lot* of overlap with accessories. Indeed we struggled to locate where Jewellery ended and Accessories started. ‘Cheap’ jewellery is often referred to as “accessories” but Accessories can also include things that are not Jewellery, such as belts, hair clips etc. First question: Do we split this into two categories and accept that there will be a lot of overlap or keep it as one? If we keep it as one what do we call it?

The next problem is that we couldn’t find a ‘home’ for these things:

Where do they go? They don’t seem to fit neatly anywhere do they? If they need there own category, what do we call it?

So, we have the basis of an improvement. The draft categories have been reduced from 17 to 11 and we seem to have got a more logical set where there is generally less overlap and ‘bleeding’ between categories. But your help is needed to complete it. Leave your comments here or on the relevant flickr image of the different categories in this set.

Thanks in advance

Tagged: Category: Home

Architecture, keywords and shops

14 Comments
Posted by admin on 2:19 pm

Cracking title that. A good filter which says “this is going to be a bit technical and so may not be for me”. Anyway I want to address something which some of you have raised in the last couple of months, namely the keywords on item pages, those words which describe your item, but when ‘clicked’ bring back *everything* on folksy with that keyword or tag. These things:

A few people have emailed to say how they don’t like it that shoppers can easily click away from their item to other things. I want to address this by arguing how the design and the architecture of the site supports buyers *and* sellers and that a collective solution is one that will benefit individual sellers too.

So, this is a typical example of the ‘complaint’:

Seller

Those random keywords distract buyers and encourage them to leave my shop! when people are in my shop i want them to stay there. My keywords should be in my shop only.

Folksy

The keywords are actually generated by the items you use to describe your item and are designed to help the buyer navigate across items they are interested in across the whole site. So, if you produce handbags the keywords would help them find handbags from your shop too and navigate across the site. Now, you might not think this is good but actually it *does* support you because it means users can easily get to your item from someone else’s item. It makes the site easy to use and if the site is easy to use then people will use it and buy things. Our research has shown that it benefits everyone to have the site architected in this way – buyers and sellers.

Seller

But why not provide the keywords after check-out? That would keep people interested to have a look at something else.

Folksy

We do a *lot* of research for many clients looking at exactly this issue and what we currently have supports the buyer. In the “research” phase of the buying process people filter a “product set”, a set of products they like (there are very few ’spontaneous’ point-of-sale type purchases on a site like Folksy). This ‘filtering’ is done within categories or in keyword browsing and to do this effectively people need to be able to get around the keyword or category easily – that is through “horizontal browsing”. Now, you might not think that this strategy supports *you* but if we design the service to support buyers then they will buy. People only buy what they like and making it harder for them to find things will not make them buy your things – it will just make them leave the site altogether. So, you may see it as a distraction, we believe buyers see it as helpful and that site sales will benefit as a result.

A good analogy is with the supermarket shelf. Things are organised by brand but they are all put together – baked beans for example. By allowing customers to see all of the same things in one place and find them easily you increase the likelihood of a sale across all of those items.

So, does this make sense? I appreciate it may seem counterintuitive to give people links away from your page but Google have been doing well out of telling people to go away for a while now :D What do you think? One of the things we may be able to do going forward is prioritise the shop’s items amongst *all* the other items when clicking on a keyword. But it would be good to have your thoughts on this issue first. Leave comments here or on the forum – thanks :)

Tagged: Category: Home