Like Gummy Vitamins
Version one of our newly launched Merch Match Game is now online and linked from the People page. The premise of the game is simple: get together with some friends and pick the items that best match the category given. Current categories include "Best Picture," "Most Bizarre," "Funniest," "Next item to sell," "Best gift for [various people]" and others. The majority of the initial reviews we've received have been very positive, and we hope that this game will become a favorite way to spend a few minutes every day relaxing and getting to know some of your fellow Bonanzlers.
Of course, there have been some who have asked the very reasonable question: "Why a game? Isn't this supposed to be a marketplace? Are you guys getting so bored over at your new headquarters that you had to find some new way to pass the time?"
The answer is that, while fun, the more important purpose behind Merch Match is to get us the metadata we need to be able to sift through our inventory of more than 3.5m items. Ever since we hit one million items we have been brainstorming creative ways to separate the wheat from the chaff in our catalogue. Our first stab at this was item tagging, but that proved to be only nominally useful, as many users ended up mis-tagging items either out of confusion or a desire to see certain items get more exposure on the site. What we really needed was a more direct way to get comparative information about our merchandise. We can in turn use this information to make personalized recommendations for items that a user might want, or we can pick which items may be good targets to merchandise on our category pages and the like.
Our first idea was just to outright ask our community to rate items, but that felt too much like a chore. As great an asset as our community is, we don't expect everyone to eat their vitamins every day if they aren't tasty. So, we think of Merch Match as being the Gummy Vites of item categorization. Any Costco shopper is (or should be!) familiar with this ridiculously delicious treat: it takes all of the daily vitamins you need and puts it in gummy bear form. Now I can eat my "vitamins" every day like a healthy young lad.
In time, we hope to expand the game such that scoring points unlocks secret parts of the site. But for now, you will be playing for the fame of trying to take down pugs and Scrapbookingandy from their familiar perch atop the daily leaderboard.
Give it a shot and let us know what you think! If you have any questions you think would be fun to add to the game, we'd love to hear that too!
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20 responses to Like Gummy Vitamins
Taking down Andy & Pugs will prove to be harder than you think!
Who’s going to pay for Andy’s therapy???
You’re tellin me! I see I’m not even in the top 10 all times anymore thanks to those fiendS!
ROFL
I had a bmail telling me to run that “Bill is out to take you down”
ROFL .. too funny
but, seriously, Andy needs a therapist if the game ever gets broken … the woman is addicted … but, somehow you made it an addictive game, either by design or accident LOL
So sorry guys, can’t stay long here, have to get to the Merch match game and stay on top… lol who’s coming to join me?
I think its great and it has let me sit here and list lol (while waiting for others to join!) Haha
Another Game, Really
I am sorry … but I can not see how this is going to help with MetaData. Nor how this is going to help the site grow.
All the time spent playing could be put to better use.
My rant for the day
I think it is a GREAT game!
Kim
@renagade: It helps by allowing us to classify better and worse pictures, more accurately labeled items (as beautiful, funny, bizarre, etc), and which are the best gifts for a mom, or dad. When you have millions of items, being able to sift through them to figure out which ones to show in a “Great gifts for mom” section (or similar) becomes a significant challenge. This game solves that.
Or do it from the other end- during registration, ask what people like. Then, watch what they Save For Later and see if it correlates. If it does, implement some kind of consensus thingy.
I am sooooooo addicted to this game…once I start I can’t stop!
I’m thinking like renagade. I don’t understand how this is going to find mis-tagged items or what purpose it serves. I have a full time job running an antique mall and try to get lots of items posted in my booth. I could much better use this time to list new merchandise.
I think it’s more important that we figure out how to get the crafters to quit listing their stuff under primitives. Typically primitives are antiques that were hand crafted for work purposes, such as wood and tin grain scoops, or hand wrought axes or such. Not grapevine wreaths and cutesy stenciled signs for your garden.
There is so much that needs to be cleaned up in categories and I feel that would make searching much easier for our customers. I tried searching for primitives and gave up because all the real items were buried under countless pages of newly crafted shabby chic!
Sorry, I have to agree with Renegade, and froggieb.
There are the few here that read these forums, and within that group the ones that play the games, and the sub-set there, that are “adamant” about playing games, just as there are with the HPL’s, etc.
The feedback retrieved is going to be is going to be from a VERY limited sample group. I don’t want my stuff controlled and/or recommended by such a NARROW response group. I love the folks who play games, but we need another way to do this….. PLEASE.
If we are going to self police, we need to play a Fix (crop) your picture game, or a take out the eBay reference game, or even the one where you type your listing title, and lo and behold…. It comes out NOT ALL IN CAPS…
Well I admit,, I played this morning with pugs and Andy.. And my husband kept hollering,, Breakfast is ready" Who wants to eat when the Merch Match game is going on
I started playing it with attheboutique tonight and even after she signed off I had to keep playing. The only thing that was hard for me was picking as best picture something that looked like a stock/catalog shot. Those should be good because they are professional pictures vs a seller who takes really good pictures on their own
Karen
@Bill
I am at a lost.
Granted, no – I have not played the game, (think you all know me better than that LOL)
BUT – I still dont understand.
You state this is to make sure items labeled bizarre, funny, etc are labeled correctly. Unfortunately, What I find “funny”, “cool”, etc may not be such to you or anyone else. The old phrase ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ comes to mind .
Yes, poor pictures are a problem, but they are a problem on every site. But I wonder (as Karen mentioned) how many stock photos are being tagged/labeled/etc ‘best picture’
Will this mean the drop shipped items are a better choice to display as ‘best gift for Mom’ because they have a pretty stock photo?
No – and am not just trying to ‘Rattle the nest’ here. I truly want to understand how a game is the best solution and how the fact the internet buzzing about ‘Bonanzle Sellers playing games’ is going to attract serious buyers.
It might help those selling toys and baby items, but it surely can not be a plus for the Antique and collectable dealers.
There has to be a better way.
Always with love and respect ,
Ren
I don’t make a lot of comments in the forums and try to avoid controversy, but I feel the need to comment on this new activity. I love Bonanzle and it is the only site I currently sell on. I have been here almost since the beginning and I don’t plan on leaving. I hope it will one day reach it’s full potential. I don’t think this game is the way to success. It would be fun as a one time game, but not a permanent solution.
Whenever I make an HPL and visit different booths looking for pictures I find many booths where the Seller hasn’t logged on in months, they have links in their descriptions to their eBay store or another website and their pictures are terrible, etc. I won’t include their items in my HPLs. There are so many Sellers here that just dump their items and never come back. I feel it is more important to clean up Bonanzle first and get rid of the Sellers who aren’t active than to worry about picking the best photos in a game.
I would recommend that instead of games (or along with them) add a couple of extra button to each booth where the report booth buttons are now. One to report inactive sellers, links to other venues or uncropped pictures, then Bonanzle can deal with the individual Sellers and improve the site quality as a whole.
There could be a button added that would allow someone visiting a booth to rate the quality of pictures. That way the Buyers as well as other Bonanzlers could rate the booths they visit, not just the game players.
I think that a game is going to end up as a popularity contest and publicity only for those participating, rather than those who are most deserving and spend their time keeping up their booths and taking their pictures. Just my opinion.
I appreciate all you do to improve this site, but this is not one of my favorite ideas and hope you rethink this one.
Jan
I’m kind of leaning toward the against camp and for all the reasons already stated.
I think that if it were focused towards the buyers that it “could” function as a means to get the public more engaged with the site.
Just a few thoughts after playing the game.
Couldn’t quite figure out what the purpose was, never saw what the other person picked, and felt it was way too subjective. I would never search because someone else thought an item was funny, bizarre, etc. I use key words and sub categories to narrow down my search.
As a seller of antiques & collectibles, I was disappointed that it didn’t include categories. For example show a photo of an item and pick the best category & sub categories. Collectors have a traditional vocabulary that they search for & we need them when listing.
I’m definately with the “against camp” as well and am in total agreement with all points they mentioned. I’m not a game player, I have nothing against those that play the games, I just feel that my time is better spent working my full time business. I would prefer to see site improvements vs. games.
Thanks for the feedback, all. We remain open to all ideas on how to best filter & tag merchandise, as such data is key to many of the site improvements we have slated for the upcoming months.
The primary challenge with the ideas we’ve previously used (and those given here) is that almost all are subject to being gamed (i.e., if we have a button that allows all buyers to rate a picture, why not just rate their own pictures a 10 and everyone else’s pictures a 1?). What makes Merch Match valuable is that the player’s success is based on consensus opinion, which tends to be less arbitrary and manipulable.
In less than one day’s time, we already have more than 100 games’ worth of data that has helped to isolate items with great pictures at a much higher rate than item tagging (and none of the highly rated images have been stock images).
If anyone has additional ideas on how to achieve the same goals of Merch Match through other means, please feel free to email support with your ideas — we’re open to all avenues for gathering data to make sense of our vast product catalog.
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