Random product categorization and shoulder surfing design

[electronloop]

TL;DR : shopping on adafruit is frustrating, but it doesn't have to

The rant:

Please clean up the product categories.
There are so many inconsistencies that I am never sure to have seen all the options.

Why are there 2 slip-rings in this category:
https://www.adafruit.com/categories/148
... while there is a dedicated category listing 5 products?

How is this an arduino accessory (and not an enclosure)
https://www.adafruit.com/products/271
... since its not a tight fit for arduinos (from what I read in some tutorial) ?

I could go on and on and on.
So, It seems that you have used a many-to-many relation in your categories-product implementation, but you make it look like a tree of categories. This is confusing and error prone. Especially if you have no diligence when it comes to naming or tagging products and things appear in multiple categories with no consistency from the customers point of view. Would it be unreasonable to conclude that I have seen all your slip-rings after I browsed https://www.adafruit.com/categories/148 ? Its frustrating for the customers to notice there was a better option after ordering something. Its frustrating to realize you'll have to systematically browse all product categories because of random categorization.

A more subjective note regarding the "shoulder surfing design", I believe the design of the website was chosen to make sure that it looks nice for people standing 1-2 meters away. Please improve it for people who are actually using the site rather than passersby. Being able to see more that a few products (3-4) on a decent screen or browse through a list without outrageously large pictures would be really nice and improve the shopping experience. Being able to sort products lists would be really nice too (or at least, see lists sorted in a meaningful way).

Even finding the "enclosures" category is frustrating, when you know there is one. You have to randomly click through categories until you can find it, as a subcategory of "Kits&Projects". Its debatable... but that's not important as its subjective, so why not. What I'd like to know is why there is no category tree where I could at least discover that "enclosures" is not in "parts and components". Why can't the search show something meaningful when I search for "enclosure", such as the category named "Enclosures"?! You can do better...

Try something else: search for "button":
https://www.adafruit.com/search?q=button&b=1
The results are really bad... but you find a product matching your expectations down the list:
https://www.adafruit.com/products/1489
Then you decide you want something like that, but not exactly this one so you "go up" to see other product in the same category (nothing crazy, heh?):
https://www.adafruit.com/categories/155
Why you end up there, instead of https://www.adafruit.com/categories/235 is a mystery...
I don't even understand what this "switches" category is supposed to represent.

I'm not asking for something crazy. Just something practical and organized.
A middle-ground between the "BANNED parametric search" found on "larger" supplier websites and a designer website only good looking from a distance because too impractical for the intended purpose: shop for products! Just improve search, sorting and categories... no need for crazy stuff.

[adafruit_support_rick]

Thanks for the comments. I'll share them with the web team!