Has the new Best Match search strangled your sales?
You need to make 'Best Match' work FOR you and not against you. It can be your biggest enemy or your best friend.
Ebay search results used to be listed in order of how much time was left on the auction. However, Ebay recently introduced their 'Best Match search' which changed the rules completely, it means that listings are now listed in order of what Ebay deems to be relevant to the buyer.
This means that some sellers are making a small fortune because they are listed at the top of search results all the time despite having weeks left for their auctions to run, whilst some other sellers have just minutes left on their auction yet are still hidden on page 42 for nobody to see.
If you are one of the latter then you have no doubt seen a massive drop in your sales and are possibly in a state of panic.
There are ways to increase your exposure by moving up the ranks. Firstly, offer free postage, Best Match likes this and will help move you up the rankings for offer free shipping as an option.
Secondly, use keyword rich titles. You need to include as many relevant keywords in your title that people might be searching for as you possibly can. Make sure you do this without breaching their keyword spamming policy.
Try starting auctions with a low bidding price to generate more interest and bids - The more bids you get the more 'relevance' the ebay best match system will allocate to your auction meaning that your listing will start showing up higher up in the search results.
Offer a competitive price - If users decide to change the search from 'Best Match' they will most likely change to list the cheapest first - This gives you a chance to show up in the listings higher up and start getting bids and purchases which in turn will push you up the rankings when other people search you on the normal 'best match' system.
Once you get Best Match working for you it is possible to actually make a lot, lot more than you were without it. Some people are really suffering with the Ebay Best Match search but others are making more than they ever have before by abusing it and using it to their advantage.