New category: Beverage store

[#1]

In at least 2 countries (Germany and Belgium) a quite common type of business are stores selling all kinds of beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. All of those are currently labeled with an inappropriate (too narrow) category (Beer store, Liquor store, Beer distributor, Wine store, etc), so I suggest to create a new category "Beverage store".

By way of illustration, here is a picture from Maps for one of them, where you see a typical example with beers sold by the bottle (on the left), beer sold by the crate (centre) and non-alcoholic drinks (on the right).

 @ Other local guides: if this type of business also exists in your country, please add that fact as comment to this post. 

[aka_Rὁn]

@JanVanHaver

That makes a great deal of sense because a lot of the  off licenses in the UK also carry soft drinks, energy drinks, non-alcoholic beverages and fruit juices now although they are still labelled (legally) as off-licenses  ( to cover the sale of alcoholic beverages that are not consumed on the premises ).

Are there similar legal designations in Belgium ?

...

[Flash]

Hi @JanVanHaver,

The way this is handled in the database is that multiple categories are applied.  So if a place sells wine, beer and liquor then all three categories should be applied.

Access to all the categories is a Map Maker feature that has not been ported to Maps yet.  If you'd like to see it then you should use the Your Opinions About Maps section of Send Feedback to express that you'd like to see it; that gets it directly to the team that accumulates such data.

While Maps currently only allows editing of the primary category, the businesses themselves can access all the categories a feature has via Google My Business.  Google specifically doesn't want generalized categories used if at all possible.

FYI, "Liquor store" in English normally refers to a store that sells all three.

[JanVanHaver]

@Flash, l was not aware that the term liquor store was used in such a broad way in English ( @aka_Rὁn is that also the case for the UK?).

The problem in other languages might then be that the translation for 'liquor store' is a more narrow term referring to alcoholic drinks only. In Dutch, for example, it is translated as 'slijterij', whereas that type of business is most commonly referred to with the more general term 'drankencentrale' (quite a few of them also have that term in their name - and have it also on the storefront and website as part of the business name).

[Flash]

@JanVanHaver, even if the translations don't work well, this is fixed by applying myltiple categories to the business.

"Beverage Store" is very generic; there is nothing to say it sells alcohol.  "Beverage Store" could be applied to the bubble tea shop down the road from my home, the Pop Shoppe location in the opposite direction (that sells only soda), the local smoothies shop, the specialty store at the local dairy, and our Walmart (which has a grocery section); none of which sell alchol but all of which definitely sell beverages.

This is why Google prefers precise categories over generalized ones.  A generalized category like Beverage Store woud lead to people not finding what they seek when searching, whether it be that they are searching for alcohol but get just bubble tea locations or if they are searching for a place to buy milk but get just all the local brewery/tap houses.  What they would need to do, though, is give us back the ability to edit all the categories on a place.

That in itself is probably an issue, however, as that was a feature that got abused all the time.  We actually had the term "category spam".  An example of category spam would be applying something like "Beverage Store" (if it was an actual category) to a supermarket.  While technically correct, it's already implied that you can buy beverages when the Supermarket or Grocery Store category is used.  If you start adding every possible category to a place then the search system doesn't work well.  A good example is that restaurants that have a single chicken sandwich on their menu like to add Chicken Restaurant to their categories, but obviously that is not what people are seeking when they search that term.

Category spam had to be cleaned up all the time, and edits to add it had to be denied.  I could see the abuse factor being what keeps us from regaining the ability to edit all of a POIs categories.

What wouldn't be category spam is if a country's laws don't normally allow for liquor to be sold in a supermarket, so you add Wine Store to the rare supermarket that has been given permission to sell it.  This applies to the supermarket/grocery store near me; our liquor laws are just starting to be relaxed and it is allowed to sell wines, but no other store in my city can do the same, thus why the additional category of Wine Store would help people to know it's an option.  It's also a demonstration of why multiple categories is not the solution, otherwise we'd have to create a special category just for supermarkets that sell wine, but no beer or hard spirits, so that we could distinguish such a store from regular grocery stores.

[JanVanHaver]

@Flash Adding the possibility to add multiple categories for a POI would (assuming this edit would also bring 5 points) almost certainly cause a new flood of this so-called category spamming.

It seems that also legal and cultural differences play a role in this particular case: over here all supermarkets sell water + soft drinks + beer + wine + spirits. The difference with the shops I am referring to is that those have only beverages, but much more variation per type of beverage (a supermarket typically has 10  or 20 brands of beer, the drinks specialist ['Beverage store' is just a proposal, can be another temr as well] might have 100 or 200)

If 100% of businesses would be claimed and all business owners would use it the way it is intended, then indeed GMB would be enough. Unfortunately there is still a substantial number of unclaimed businesses, so from LG perspective having all the necessary options to choose form as primary category remains useful, in my view.

I also agree that using a more specific category is better than a general category, but there are cases where non of the specific categories is useful as LG-usable main category. The idea exchange we had in the past about car brands is a nice illustration: the more general category 'car dealer' is useful as main category when:

1. the dealer is selling multiple brands

2. the brand sold by the dealer does not have it's own branded category.

[JeroenM]

It is a great example @JanVanHaver that showcases how complex the use of categories and its practical applications are on Google Maps (globally).

Not being able to see the secondary categories as described by Flash, is hindering advanced LGs from doing a good job. It would be great if a certain type of LG could earn the editing right to the type of edits that could be abused by spammers/ ignorant point hunters.

[TraciC]

Hi @JanVanHaver. The team is looking into making this happen. Thanks for your idea!

[JanVanHaver]

Awesome news @TraciC , thanks for letting me know. 

[mrangjunboon2017s]

@mention true. by @mrangjunboon2017 

[0R0]

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