The New ebay: The Official Guide to Buying, Selling, Running a Profitable Business

Chapter 26

Best match — visibility in eBay search

Best match is eBay’s default search algorithm. As explained in parts II and III of this book, it is the way the vast majority of buyers’ search results are ordered. Product placement is one of the classic tenets of retail, so on eBay having your listings appear as close to the top of search results as possible is one of the fundamental requirements for having a profitable business. You will be in constant competition with other sellers to get to the top of the list, and while there are no sure-fire guarantees (and eBay will never release the finer details of its algorithm), there are some key factors you should consider to help increase the visibility of your products in an eBay search.

Recent sales

The more products you sell from within one listing, the more eBay recognises that listing as being in demand and popular with buyers. Popularity is one of the main measurements of the Best match algorithm. For this reason, you should consider implementing the following tactics wherever possible.

List at a fixed price using multiquantity and multivariant. In other words, as auctions are limited to one of each product per listing, take advantage of fixed price, which allows you to list large quantities of products in each listing. Further, using multivariant (including multiple sizes, colours and styles, for example) within the same fixed price listing gives you even greater opportunity to sell more products.

List in longer duration ...