Do you think it’s possible to have too many shop collections? I have hundreds of items listed so wanted to make it easier to browse, but given many people shop via their mobile phones, does it take too long scrolling through categories to find what you want??
If anyone has an opinion, or wants to have a look at my shop and let me know how easy it is to navigate, it would be much appreciated… 
At the moment if I view your shop on my computer all your collections fit on the screen at once so I don’t have to scroll through to read all the headings to find the one I need - if there were any more I would have to do that which would be annoying so I think, for PC viewing, you’ve hit the maximum number of collections. Obviously for phones and tablets this will be different. Do you have google analytics set up? This could tell you the proportion of mobile to PC traffic that you have and whether or not it is worth reducing the number of categories to make it more mobile/ tablet friendly.
I have 6 and 6 only. I want my shop listings to be what people see asap and if you have too much at the top of the page then they are too far down.
I’ve had to combine two collections to get myself down to 6 when I needed to add one.
Also as we can’t chose the picture for the collection if you have multiple collections it’s almost impossible to stop seeing the same picture in different collections which is a waste of valuable picture space.
I would certainly only ever have a mulptiple of 6 as it looks so messy to have a part ‘line’,
(I note that you both have a multiple so you obviously think the same
I’ve seen some shops with as many collections as listings as my head can’t get round the logic of that.
On my mobile the collections are shown in pairs with a total of 6 visible at the same time so for your shop collections that’s lot of scrolling (and in my case accidentally swiping on things). If you wanted to reduce down the number of collections you could consider putting all of your originals into one collection which would save you 4 collection slots, I’m with Joy on having them in multiples of 6 so you would need to loose a couple more.
One thing I do notice comparing viewing your listings within a collection to mine (on my mobile) is that because my shop name is short I can see 4 complete listings per screen but because your shop name is longer I get 2 complete listings and the top of 2 others so there is more scrolling to get through everything.
No I don’t think I have set up google analytics - it was on my old shop and I’m pretty sure I haven’t set it up on this one yet though. Will do that asap. Even on the PC I wondered if there were too many; definitely shouldn’t have any more… Thanks Sasha
I think there’s a danger of trying to please everyone, and thinking up collection headings that would appeal to as many different visitors as possible. But there is def a maximum and I have certainly reached it, and think in hindsight I’ve exceeded. Need to stop thinking like an ‘artist’ I think, with my various collections, and more as a ‘shop’ with ease of search in mind first. Thanks Joy
That’s interesting to know re the length of name - never even considered that!!
I stick with 6, as I want people to get to the listings as soon as possible.
Yes - I’m not sure I can get to 6 in total but I am going to merge a few tonight so I should be able to lose 6 or even 12.
I started with a set for Media - eg watercolour/ graphite/… and another for Subject eg animals/plants/… and every listing was in two collections.Then I spotted Joy’s thoughts about just having 6 on a previous thread. Which made sense, so I took out one set and just have the ‘media’ collections, which works out neatly at 6.
Looking back with GA, I can see that the other set of collections didn’t get half so many clicks anyway, so they can’t have been very useful for buyers.
When you’ve got some with 20+ items and some with 1-4 items, I’d try to get rid of those that only have a few items.
Collections should help shoppers easily be able to find what they’re looking for, At a minimum for your shop I would probably have originals, prints, cards, brooches and keyrings and sewing kits, because that easily separates things out into the type of item. Then if some of the collections still look massive, find a way to clearly split them.
“Animal magic” and “fragrant florals” are fairly obvious so helpful to shoppers - I expect to find animals and flowers under each of those. The “on trend” I’d get rid of as I wouldn’t know what to expect. If I’m looking for a fox it wouldn’t be clear to me that I might find it there. The “children” I also find a bit confusing, with the way your other collections are named I would expect it to be images of children, not just a different style of animals.
Hi, I love the collections, but like Helen, I also spotted Joys suggestion of keeping it to 6 on a previous thread, and I too cut mine down. To me it makes sense from a visual point of view, and I also hated it when the front pic was often the same on each collection.
That’s useful re the GA experience - I don’t have any detailed analytics at present so your insight is much appreciated.
Yes those categories seem ideal as they describe the items clearly. I’ve let the shop evolve and had different ideas at different times, so it’s now become a bit jumbled, and I can see now I’ve not used consistent terminology (eg ‘children’ to describe items for children, not as a composition description).
I need to recategorise and hopefully end up with a much easier to navigate shop…
Yes seeing the same picture in many collections is very distracting, and also gives the impression there’s not much stock in the shop!
Yes, it’s hard when you have new items that don’t quite fit your current ones, then you make a new collection and another, but because they’re all made at different times it just ends up a bit inconsistent. It’s good to step back sometimes and just completely rethink them to find a way to fit all the new and old together.
I’ve only just re-opened my shop here so forgot you can have things in multiple collections! Both useful but also easy to go over the top… I’d probably try to name the collections so most things only go in 1, and then if there’s just a few items in multiple collections it doesn’t seem too repetitive.
Yes - it’s easy to get too close to something and fail to see the bigger picture!
Okay, I have now reduced my collections by half, so now have 12. I think the shop is much cleaner as a result, so is hopefully easier for customers to navigate. Thanks for all your input @SashaGarrett, @JOYSofGLASS, @DeborahJonesJewellery, @HelenCliffordArt, @konyskiw and @PetraBradleyPrints. Really appreciate it.
Now to tidy up the individual collections!!
Hi @HeidiMeier - just had a look on your shop and I thought the collections descriptions look great! I’m the kind of person who doesn’t mind scrolling down to see more though! And, to be honest, I think I have quite alot of collections myself!! 
but to be fair, I have been trying to categorise them into better sections like ‘nature’ floral etc! I also still have ‘earrings’, ‘rings’ etc sections so depending on what people are looking for either through theme or actual item of Jewellery they should get found?!? It just seemed to make sense to me! Cheers, Amanda
@bowerbirddesigns
Hi @HeidiMeier, that does look better now. On the PC I see two neat rows of 6 collections, and they all seemed to me to be logically named. I do think it helps to stand back and reassess every now and then, whether it’s collections, tags, or what order things appear in.