@Robin Carlton - Honestly, for me, it's 99% about keywords.
I think your time and the designer's time would be best spent on making sure there's complete and accurate descriptions on their products, rather than dropping things into pre-defined categories. There have been times I've searched on a keyword and come up with a bunch of kits from the same designer that don't fit it, and I think what they've done is copied-and-pasted from a previous kit in their shoppe. And sometimes I search on a keyword and get like 3 results when I know there should be a couple pages worth.
When I keyword the kits on my hard drive and search my own stash, I've found the greatest benefit from the color and theme keywords. For example here's how I've keyworded these:
Adorable Christmas Baking - White, Grey, Kraft, Black, DARK deep red, MEDIUM lime green, DARK hunter green, MEDIUM turquoise, DARK navy, LIGHT pink, MEDIUM hot pink, baking, Christmas, cookie, kitchen, wood
Our Family: The Sassy One - White, Black, MEDIUM orange, LIGHT sage green, Lavender, MEDIUM purple, LIGHT pink, MEDIUM hot pink, butterfly, girl, humor or sarcasm, sassy, shoe, teenager, tween, woman
A Storybook Summer: Strawberry Meadows - White, Black, MEDIUM orange red, LIGHT mint green, MEDIUM kelly green, chalk or chalkboard, gingham, strawberry, summer
The colors are really handy for me because as I add each one to narrow down my results, I can get to exactly what I need. For example, if my photos have a blue-red in them, and I need white for my neutrals instead of cream, and I also want a light turquoise, I add them all to my search and get results like this - they may also include other colors, but I can quickly narrow it down to the ones I want.
View attachment 680417
I don't think you have to get so detailed as to list out every single element that's in a kit (though that doesn't hurt, especially if someone is looking for a specific singular element). I think, instead, if you can get keywords added in a basic set of categories, you'd improve the usability of the search tool significantly. Here's what I use in my own personal system - I've found that as I've developed these categories and keywords over the years, it becomes quicker and quicker to keyword my previews. Perhaps if you developed a list for the shoppe, the designers could copy and paste quickly and come up with their description keywords - or have the Babes do it for them as they post each week. (And of course I wouldn't make the suggestion if I wasn't willing to help!)
Color
- basic neutrals (white, grey, black)
- neutral browns (cream, kraft, brown)
- reds (orange red, blue red, deep red, maroon)
- oranges (coral, peach, orange, dark orange)
- yellows (light yellow, yellow gold, deep yellow, mustard yellow, yellow-green)
- greens (mint green, sage green, lime green, kelly green, moss green, grass green, hunter green, army olive green)
- aquas (light aqua, turquoise, teal)
- blues (light blue, royal blue, navy, deep blue)
- purples (lavender, purple, dark purple, periwinkle)
- pinks (light pink, hot pink, dark pink, magenta)
- metallics (clear, gold, silver, copper, rose gold)
Themes
- animals (bat, bear, bee, bird, bugs, bunny, butterfly, etc.)
- country or continent (america, australia, bahamas, canada, caribbean, china, etc.)
- day of week
- edibles (apple, baking, banana, beer, blueberry, breakfast, etc.)
- emotional or mental (activism, adulting, adversity, affirrmations, aging, anger, anxiety, etc.)
- faith (baptism, believe or belief, bible, blessing, christian, jewish, muslim, buddhist, cross, nativity, pray or prayer, worship)
- growing things (acorn, bluebonnets, cactus, cherry blossoms, clover, daffodil, daisy, etc.)
- health (allergy or allergies, autism, brain, cancer, COVID, diabetes, etc.)
- hobby (art, books or reading, drama theatre or plays, games and gaming, music or rock, scrapbooking, sewing, etc)
- holiday event or celebration (4th of july, advent, anniversary, birthday, celebrate, Chinese New Year, Christmas, Cinco de Mayo, etc.)
- month
- movie book or tv show (aladdin, alice in wonderland, avengers, barbie, batman, beauty and the beast, etc.)
- people (adult, air force, alien, angel, army, baby, boy, brother, child or kid, clown, cowboy or cowgirl, dad or father, etc.)
- places (amusement park or disney, backyard, beach or tropical, carnival, castle, circus or fair, college, etc)
- season (autumn or fall, spring, summer, winter)
- shape (abc, ampersand, arrows, candle, chevron or zigzag, circle, diamond, fleurs de lis, hearts, etc)
- sports (archery, axe throwing, band or marching band, baseball, basketball, bowling, competition, cornhole, etc.)
- state (alabama, alaska, arizona, etc.)
- tech (camera film, cassette tape, computer or laptop, disc or cd, electronic game, emoticon or emoji, instagram, etc)
- texture or pattern (animal print, antique, bandanna, bokeh, brick, burnt, camoflauge, canvas or burlap, cardboard or chipboard, etc)
- things (anchor, award or ribbon, backpack, ball pit, balloon, basket, beads, beard, bell, bomb, bounce house, etc.)
- transportation (airplane, auto car or driving, bike or bicycle, boat or ship, boating or canoeing, camper or rv, etc)
- travel (camping, cruise, explore, hotel, map, passport, road trip, etc)
- weather (aurora borealis, cloud, cold, heat or hot, moonlight, nights or nighttime, rain, rainbow, etc)
- years or eras (1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026)
- projects (all about me, day in the life, month in review, year in review, project 365, etc)
I can provide my full list of keywords if it would be a good starting point. (This is probably way more detail than you wanted in a reply here ... sorry! LOL)
