The Big Trait Update
It's on!
At least in an early beta form.
You can now filter items by traits. For instance, see a search for DVDs, or a search for Action/Adventure DVDs.
For those late to the party, item traits are Bonanzle's emerging way for sellers to assign structured, category-specific information to their items. For example, in the aforementioned case of DVDs (wait a minute... you're selling DVDs on Bonanzle?! (actually despite the fact that DVDs are a rather generic product, I've been surprised at how many actually do sell here. But I digress)), you could assign traits that marked your DVD as being in the "Action" genre, rated "PG-13" and in "Like new" condition.
We use these item traits for two purposes currently. The first is that, where possible, we will automatically translate your item traits into Google Attributes, so buyers can better find your items in search engines. No more need to fiddle with setting up Google Attributes by hand (in most cases). The other purpose is the one I'm writing this here blog about: that Bonanzle buyers can now use traits to narrow down their on-site search results.
As mentioned in the previous blog, it took a complete rewrite of the data structures for our traits to get them working in search (and get them ready for user-driven suggestions, which we hope to add in the next week or so), so there will probably be a few bugs to iron out in the next couple days. Two bugs that are already known: when you look at your item traits in the batch editor (under Item Traits), checkbox traits display weird. Also, until this evening, traits weren't being imported from eBay correctly, so if you imported your items from eBay prior to this evening and want traits, you'll probably want to give your import another go. Note that there are many traits that we don't import from eBay, including any traits that weren't hand-entered by you (due to copyright issues. Most traits for items with ISBN or UPC codes are automatically entered on eBay, so we import very few traits for items with ISBN or UPC codes).
There were quite a number of other exciting changes in this evening's update... take a looksee at the "What's New" list if you're the curious type.
P.S. I pity the next marketplace to follow our lead on traits. As I learned when trying to program these beastly things, there is good reason that even the bigger eBay alternatives have steered clear of traits so far. Too hard!
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