@castlemagicmemories wrote:
@penguins_dont_fly wrote:
If I were selling a $1200.00 item, I would give more info than "Vintage item with signs of age. Please see photos."
Give the buyer some details about the exact condition of the item.
Same thing for all of your china ...
Absolutely. Lack of an adequate description is a large deterrent to sales as buyers pass the listing by in favor of those with complete, accurate, and informative descriptions. If someone does buy it, it opens the door big time to SNAD.
See pictures is especially a turn off as the buyer may wonder what is hidden in the pictures that they may not see, and that the seller is determined to hide. It's the kiss of death to a sale. It may also raise concerns in the buyer's mind that if the seller can't put effort into an adequate listing, what else won't he put effort into? Packing, shipping? Maybe best to move on.
This needs to be more specific as to what you mean by description.
Item Specifics hold much the weight nowdays. HTML descriptions themselves have been all but deprecated. Almost every buyer doesn't even know about the "Include Description" search filter. Even if you include description, the contents have very little weight compared to item specifics. Listings with extreme amounts of art actually move you down in search as that's not very mobile compatible. You see top ranked search item with broken descriptions, missing images, broken frames. They mean very little in search.
To respond to the OP's question, it's a combination of many things that changes constantly. Early this year, price was the #1 deciding factor (which went a bit badly considering they were pushing free returns, and this was not included in calculation). Seems like free returns are helping more now.
Prices are still important obviously. Free shipping helps. Promotions help.
Initial traffic helps. If your listing doesn't get many views, it will be thought of as worse than other listings. If you have a lot of quick views or sales, you will get a boost.
New listings have a boost at first as well.
They claim feedback does not make a difference, but often nowdays you will see a mix of sellers with low feedback (new sellers) and extremely high feedback. So I think it is factoring nowdays, just not sure exactly how.
Images without borders does help. Text, they say is bad, but as of right now, it doesn't seem to be making a noticable difference. Note, the image has a very minor affect. But as with everything else, this may change at any time.
Certain item specifics are more or less important depending on category. In auto parts as we sell, MPN is most important. Interchange and Other part numbers are important as well. For a little while a month or so ago, only MPN was being factored, and this was very bad for the category, but they resolved that one.
You need to constantly search your own items and evolve with the trends.
Try searching your own items, and thinking of what buyers might search. See where your items place, as well as check what the top results are doing differently than you.
It might simply be they had more activity when making a new listing. Sometimes it's a bit "random". You could put the same item up at the same price 5 months in a row, and it does badly for 4 months, but the 5th month you get a quick sale, and this may push the item to the top of the charts. Which makes it easier to sustain.
This is why some say GTC listings are bad. The longer you go without a sale or low activity, the worse placement you get. It's a negative snowball effect.
But if you have strong GTC activity, it's easier to keep up. And can give your listings sustained activity above newly relisted items.
penguins_dont_fly is a Volunteer Community Mentor
