GCU Forum - Frustrated ... with Categories

Mindy

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Re: Frustrated ... with Categories
Reply #30 - Mar 27^th, 2008, 2:44pm

Quote from Norval_132688 on Mar 27^th, 2008, 2:08pm:

Hi, Mindy 'just read your post----The message at the top that keeps coming up.
You received one of my my early morning tantrums, venting big time, after
going back .and editing the age specific cards for the upteenth time, after Shaun replied I found out had been my own fault! I wasn't scrolling down far enough to see his message to please stop doing what I had been doing in catagories. But,
I'm glad you made the change, Thank You, .....I didn't make my self clear though,
I didn't mean for the change to go across the board to include all ages, I can see what a mess that could become. Just the children through teen, thats where when you're in a hurry, you want specific gender information.
About obstacles I still think the big one is there, two way link between the reminder
services and our stores. I don't know if you or Shaun can do any thing about it, it will entail a rethinking of the original business plan. I'm sure Mr. Nasser is finding this out, Bussiness plans have to evolve, and in online that means fast. Other
Obstacles, you've fixed most of them, I posted before they had had a chance to take effect. On the subject of ecards you and Shaun both have said you will eventually be able to something. I hope so this could really be a good tool for
marketing and brand recognition. If I offended, Sorry, I know you and Shaun are doing everything you can to make this Company succeed. I worked in a dept. of
over eight hundred designers, and each had their own agenda, thats where I learned to be so nice. .........Norval

No offense taken, thanks for the follow up and clarifications.

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Harry_132595

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Re: Frustrated ... with Categories
Reply #31 - Mar 31^st, 2008, 7:26am

I dunno folks ...

I just sold my second card today ... well if you count each individual card it's my 16th since on my first sale the buyer bought 15 of one card.

And once again ... it was one of my cards that was not particularly specific and said very little really ... but then maybe what it does say is a lot. Just one word.

http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/community/viewdetails.asp?pid=169197&pag e=1&aid=132595

Merci, merci, merci to my buyer in France!!!! I love international sales. I have a T-shirt living just outside of London.

Maybe some folks do get frustrated when they can't find a card that specifically says "friend" ... but ... wow you really can put anything you want inside.

I need a clarification ... when a buyer goes to personalize a card ... they can change all 3 fields right? So if they like the card and I've written something dumb they can change that too right???

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Corrie_131338 Gold Member Posts: 1611	Re: Frustrated ... with Categories Reply #32 - Mar 31^st, 2008, 8:00am Hi Harry - The inside of all GCu cards is fully customizable, so a buyer can personalize the inner text however they want. Corrie http://www.corrieweb.nl
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Harry_132595 Senior Member artist Posts: 293	Re: Frustrated ... with Categories Reply #33 - Mar 31^st, 2008, 2:11pm Quote from Corrie_131338 on Mar 31^st, 2008, 8:00am: Hi Harry - The inside of all GCu cards is fully customizable, so a buyer can personalize the inner text however they want. Corrie http://www.corrieweb.nl Thank you Corrie!
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Kathy_131728

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Posts: 610

Re: Frustrated ... with Categories
Reply #34 - Apr 1^st, 2008, 9:46am

Hi Mindy,
I read your post about how frustrated a shopper was a few days ago looking in the friend card category. I took this as a queue to work on my own card shop. I have spent the past two days making sure all my cards are in the right categories for shoppers. One thing I noticed while doing this is that the birthday categories for for him, for her, general and youth can also be misleading for shoppers. These categories have lots of age specific cards in them. Shoppers looking in these categories would not be interested in any specific age necessarily, yet they have to wade through all these cards. I removed all of my age specific cards which were in these categories so as not to cause customer confusion, but there are lots more. Is GCU planning to do anything with all these age specific cards in other categories? Just wondering.
Thanks.
Kathy

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Mindy

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Re: Frustrated ... with Categories
Reply #35 - Apr 1^st, 2008, 12:03pm

Quote from Kathy_131728 on Apr 1^st, 2008, 9:46am:

Hi Mindy,
I read your post about how frustrated a shopper was a few days ago looking in the friend card category. I took this as a queue to work on my own card shop. I have spent the past two days making sure all my cards are in the right categories for shoppers. One thing I noticed while doing this is that the birthday categories for for him, for her, general and youth can also be misleading for shoppers. These categories have lots of age specific cards in them. Shoppers looking in these categories would not be interested in any specific age necessarily, yet they have to wade through all these cards. I removed all of my age specific cards which were in these categories so as not to cause customer confusion, but there are lots more. Is GCU planning to do anything with all these age specific cards in other categories? Just wondering.
Thanks.
Kathy

Hi Kathy,
You are correct, the age specific cards (and relationship as well as year specific ones as well) should only go in those age/relation/year specific categories. The only exception I can think of are those that have both age & relation specific (Happy 40th Mom) which we are allowing in both. But certainly not 40th for her.

With a quick peek at Birthday for Her and Birthday for Him they appear to be cards that we approved at the start of GCU. We're older and wiser now Wink

We'll have someone take a pass at these two categories to clean them up.

Any other categories with glaring miscategorizing?

The cleaned up Birthday for Friends is lovely and specific:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/shopping/cb.asp?cid=302

Thanks!

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Teri Francis_131425

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Posts: 326

Re: Frustrated ... with Categories
Reply #36 - Apr 1^st, 2008, 6:07pm

Kathy and Mindy ... thanks for picking up on this part of the thread ... but I'm still utterly confused on how we should be categorizing our cards and how the keyword search logic works. Every time I think I have it figured out .... Huh

I'm in the midst of uploading some age-specific cards, and I'd like to make sure I get it right before doing any more of them. In the past I put them ONLY in the age appropriate category ... where they are now showing up (thank you Mindy and Shaun!) ... but when they were lost and I was searching for them, I saw that many age- or relationship-specific cards were also categorized in other somewhat subjective categories as well, thus giving them more exposure. Of course, if a card is clearly specific to two categories, that makes sense ... but I've seen how it could be frustrating to the shoppers and confusing to the contributors when cards show up subjectively by either category or keyword search.

Here is the example I presented last month when I was at my wits end trying to figure it out: Keyword search = BEST + FRIEND + BIRTHDAY ... this is the resulting page:
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/shopping/cb.asp?keywords=best%20friend%20bir thday

Out of 18 cards on the first page (Most Popular) ... only 4 actually match the search criteria based on keywords and categories. I have two cards ranked in the top 3 that DON'T belong there ... in fact, I have only one Best Friend BIRTHDAY card that does fit the profile. There are 3 cards that could "subjectively" suit the search by keywords, but with no clear indication on the outside or in the verse that they pertain to a best friend's birthday ... just that they would be suitable as such. But I don't think party invitations, occupation-specific birthday cards, and generic blank cards ... lovely as they all are ... should be showing up there either.

Again, I apologize if I'm out of line on this, but that's why I was so frustrated before ... there are some really terrific and very specific Best Friend Birthday cards on pages 2, 3, etc., all the way to the last page ... and those cards will never be seen by a shopper who gives up looking for a specified birthday card for a friend when they have to wade through every other conceivable kind of card. There is an absolutely adorable card titled "Best Friends Birthday" located on page 17 ... maybe I'm crackers, but I think a card like that should show up well before some of the cards on the previous 16 pages that had nothing to do with a best friend's birthday.

It appears to me that all the cards that don't seem to fit that keyword search were properly categorized, at least most of them that I look at. So, this is where I could use some help and guidance, and maybe others could too. I think we all agree that we want to make the shopping experience easy, clear-cut, and fast for the customer ... but it's not clear to me how we need to categorize and keyword our cards to help make that happen. I know that the profiling is explained when we submit our cards, but maybe the GCU elves could come up with a "This is how we'd like you should categorize your cards ...." page that we could refer to when subjectivity gets the better of us.

Thanks in advance for any guidance on this.

Teri

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Kathy_131728

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Posts: 610

Re: Frustrated ... with Categories
Reply #37 - Apr 2^nd, 2008, 7:40am

Hi Mindy,

I looked at the friend birthday category. It looks really nice now. I hope the original shopper comes back to take a look.

I think the general and youth categories also have lots of age specific cards in them. It might be a good idea to take a look at those too. By the way, I encountered a little trouble when trying to delete cards from a category. I had to always recheck to make sure they left the category I wanted them to leave. Shaun and company are working on this.

Teri, you make a good point about keywords. I want to redo my keywords in a few months. However, I am waiting to find out exactly how the new shoppers tool will work so that I can make sure I am loading the right keywords. It think that is a few months away. I think Teri's suggestion about a little help with categories would be great. I am taking the road of if a card is very specific, only put it in that specific category. It is hard as artists because we want to get our cards as much press as possible, but I think we have to put on the shopper hat when doing categories and say where would I a shopper look for a card like this.

Thanks for listening.
Kathy

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Mindy

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Re: Frustrated ... with Categories
Reply #38 - Apr 4^th, 2008, 4:19pm

Both cleaned up and looking lovely!

Birthday >> For Him
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/shopping/cb.asp?cid=194

Birthday >> For Her
http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/shopping/cb.asp?cid=195

So next we're on to Birthday >> General and Birthday >> Youth. Thanks for the tip.

Absolutely put your shopper's hat on when categorizing and profiling your cards. We understand that artists want the best and most exposure for their cards but by categorizing/profiling a card beyond what it really is will only be doing the artist and all other artists a disservice by putting cards where they don't belong and sending the shopper away.

Teri, you are right. Age specific cards (relation and year specific as well) should ONLY go in that age/relation/year specific category. They do NOT also go in General, or for Her, etc. We are quite diligent in our card approval process in sticking to this.

Similarly, a card should not be in both For Her and For Him. That doesn't make sense. If it's appropriate for both then it's a General card, not gender specific.

Where you do see some poor categorization first please bring it to our attention as we can do some weeding. Secondly, it may be a result of cards approved in the past when we we're not as discerning. And lastly, it could be artists changing categories after a card has been approved. It the last scenario is the case, we'd have to consider removing this functionality and not allow artists to change categories after a card has been approved.

Keywords are a completely different story and not as clear cut of an answer since there are many factors that go into it considering a ton of content (title, keywords, inside verse, category and more) as well as weighting and factoring for relevancy. And when relevancy is equal among cards logic is applied to determine which one to show first.

Agreed, our onsite search leaves much to be desired and it is on the top of our list of improvements. Until then don't pull your hair out trying to figure the logic out. Just focus on using the keywords and titles that best serve your cards.

It is often, although not always, misleading keywords that produce peculiar search results. Many of the cards that come up on the search page you shared are generic birthday cards that have "friend" or "best friend" in the keywords. That is misleading. If the card doesn't address "friend" on the cover or inside verse these keywords should not be used.

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ruth_133107 GCU Newbies artist Posts: 1	Re: Frustrated ... with Categories Reply #39 - Apr 23^rd, 2008, 8:50am Hi I am on zazzle too mrsrnj (mrs r n j) over there.I have been over there for awhile I love the community.One of the best is captphrank.It is a creative outlet for me Ive made a little money but its not about that for me the fun/joy of creating is really neat for me.-Ruth
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cheryl_131479

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Posts: 80

Re: Frustrated ... with Categories
Reply #40 - Apr 24^th, 2008, 9:07am

I agree with you, Harry and several others.

If I'm buying a card, particularly a card with a painting or lovely photo on it..
I prefer blank.
At LEAST on the OUTSIDE.

As for the 'Sorting through 3000 blank cards issue...'
Yeah, that's a biggie.. but COULD BE EASILY FIXED.

Right now, GCU is so verloaded with specific catagories and relationships I don't know how they manage...

but 'Blank card' is only 'Blank Card'

They simply need to add catagories UNDER 'Blank Card' where you can choose the most relevant use...

NOT heavily broken down categories, there's no need of that... just generalized.. then with some of the more heavily submitted blanks like 'Holiday' broken down a little more.

But for instance,

A blank card with a photo of a lonely beach at dusk... it's sad and lonely looking, right?
This is NOT good for 'Happy Birthday'

This card might be catagorized under "Blank- Missing you" and "Blank - Sorry" OR GCU might go even MORE generalized and have "Blank-Sad" which would cover both of those.
At any rate someone wanting 'happy birthday' won't be sorting through tons of "SAD" cards to do it, unless they wanted to send "Sorry I missed your birthday!!" in which case they might choose to look there, and that lonely beach might be JUST what they want.

This is one thing I've found silly since starting here... that 'Blank' cards are just 'Thrown away'.

Blank cards are priceless..

**Modifying to add...
Mindy, I HATE your forum...

I posted this thing, and the messages above it are NOT the messages I read before writing it!! (I sincerely thought it had mis-posted in the wrong topic briefly!)

The lack of 'next page' links at the bottom of the page tricked me again, and made me think it was a single-page post!!!
I don't look for that "1 - 2 - 3" at the TOP, I look at the BOTTOM!
I ALSO detest having to scroll to the top to hit 'reply'.. so much so that I usually hit 'quote', then just delete whatever quote appears before posting...

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Norval_132688

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Re: Frustrated ... with Categories
Reply #41 - Apr 24^th, 2008, 9:57am

Hi Mindy, I don't know if this is the thread to bring this up, but it was the first at the top of my e-mails this morning. As I was reading through it quickly, Terri was talking about certain cards falling on page 17 etc. This bothers me too. This probably already happens, but if it does'nt---- is there any way in catagories to have an automatic computerized shuffle so every card has a chance to be seen, and not stuck like, for example, on page 17 for ever. I have a feeling, and I may be wrong that is maybe why some good cards never sell is because they're never seen by the customers? It seems like, when I'm browsing, the same cards are always in the first pages.

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Rosanne_132497

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Posts: 611

Re: Frustrated ... with Categories
Reply #42 - Apr 24^th, 2008, 6:32pm

Quote from Norval_132688 on Apr 24^th, 2008, 9:57am:

Hi Mindy, I don't know if this is the thread to bring this up, but it was the first at the top of my e-mails this morning. As I was reading through it quickly, Terri was talking about certain cards falling on page 17 etc. This bothers me too. This probably already happens, but if it does'nt---- is there any way in catagories to have an automatic computerized shuffle so every card has a chance to be seen, and not stuck like, for example, on page 17 for ever. I have a feeling, and I may be wrong that is maybe why some good cards never sell is because they're never seen by the customers? It seems like, when I'm browsing, the same cards are always in the first pages.

Hi Norval,

You might want to look at this post. Denise and I have been discussing this very point here:

http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/forum/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1207837083/15#15

Cheers,

Rosanne

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