[bristweb]

i would VERY MUCH like to see a shift away from categories and on to product tagging and filtering. this is essentially switching category folders with an advanced search / filter.

Allowing visitors more control over their shopping experience is something that really sets top ecommerce websites apart.

with the current system, i must determine the best set of categories to allow my visitors to easily find the product they need.

perhaps i try the following
color/brand/size/speed

or maybe i decide the following
brand/speed/size/color

either way, i am forcing the visitors to shop a certain way. what if the visitor doesn't care what brand they buy? they would be forced to click through every manufacturer category to find all possible options...the only possible way i could manage to help my customer would be to create categories for each possible combination of needs. Even with the simple example above with 4 options, i believe that comes out to four factorial (4! = 576). Certainly that is not a practical solution.

with tagging, i could simply give each product a tag based on its features. this way, visitors can narrow their search quickly and easily. suppose they only care about color, they could simply click to the corresponding color tag and see all products matching that color (all brands, all speeds, and all sizes).

then with filtering, the user can quickly and easily narrow their search (i.e. search within results). suppose the user realizes that they also need a specific speed, they could then filter the results by clicking the speed tag, to receive a list of products with matching color and speed. the user should be able to continually filter their results from previous results.

this way the website would now accommodate for visitors who did have a brand preference as well as those who are indifferent to brand preference.

an example of a personal favorite of mine is is newegg.com - SUPER easy to find what you're looking for. in fact it is so easy, many abandon the traditional 'search engine' hunt, and simply START the search with newegg. talk about a great way to improve repeat business!

taking it to the next level
one thing i haven't seen which would make this type of tagging system even more useful would be a checkbox selection of tags. this way visitors could select more than one tag.

so suppose a visitor was generally indefferent to brands, but they did not want one specific brand. with a checkbox selection, they could check off all the brands except the brand they dislike, so as to avoid seeing the brand they have already decided not to purchase. OR, suppose the visitor really care the exact color of the product, but rather a range of colors. they could check of a range of colors to accommodate their needs. one person may be interested in red white and blue, while another may be interested in green and red. the only trick would be to have a very simple user interface that didn't fill the screen with options. perhaps a set of dropdowns, and each click adds it to a growing list of selected options?

The point of it all is to assist customers in finding what they need quickly and easily, which has a DRAMATIC impact on sales!