Browse toys by age or by interest: which suits your store

Gift buyers think in birthdays. An aunt shopping for a four year old types the number before the category, and an age menu hands her a short list she can trust. Very young children need toys without small parts, and the age menu puts that question up front where a tired parent will see it.

Age bands work best when they match how families talk, so use baby, toddler, preschool, early school and older child, and keep to five or six bands. Wider bands give long lists. Narrower ones leave single product pages.

The weakness is the label itself. Age grading on a box is a safety judgement, not a promise of fun, so a menu built on it misses the keen builder of seven.

Interest menus start from what a child does. The headings are building, pretend play, drawing, science, music and outdoor games, and a parent who knows the child picks one at once without checking a birthday. Specialist shoppers arrive this way too, because the parent of a young builder wants bricks and beams, not just anything marked for a seven year old.

Interest menus also keep related products together. A play kitchen, felt food and a toy till sit under pretend play even though their age grading differs, so one page builds a whole gift.

Vague tags are the risk. Once “learning” is attached to half the catalogue, the menu stops meaning anything, so agree a short list of interests with a one line definition for each. Let a toy carry two or three.

Every menu rests on the fields beneath it. Store minimum and maximum age as months, never as a text label such as “3+”, so the value can be sorted and placed in any band.

Keep the safety warning in its own field. Small parts, button battery and magnet warnings come from the maker, belong to the toy and must show wherever it appears, however the shopper arrived.

Interest and skill tags sit apart from age, so a single toy can carry building, fine motor skills and a sibling gift tag all at once.

Age menus fail quietly. A set graded from five to ten and placed only under early school is lost to the buyer of a nine year old. Add the age fields, not another band.

Interest menus fail the shopper who knows only the age, because a wall of tags gives her nothing to start from. Offer age as a filter on every interest page, so that no path ends in a dead end for a shopper who knows only a birthday.

Both menus fail in one more way. A toy meant for older children can surface for a parent shopping for a toddler, so a minimum age filter and a warning must travel with every result.

Choose the main menu by how your shoppers arrive. A general toy shop with gift traffic should lead with age, while a specialist stocking construction sets, craft kits or science boxes should lead with interest. Run the other one as a filter.

Test the choice on real searches. Search box phrases show the split, since “toys for a three year old” comes from an age first shopper and “brick building sets” from an interest first one.

Start small. Take your twenty best sellers, enter the age fields and two interest tags for each, then click through both menus and fix any toy you cannot find.