Reader Kathy writes:
Your articles on Best Match are wonderful and I’m sure many an ebayer is greatful that you took the time to explain it so well, but the one line that you mentioned is of particular concern to me. “geographic proximity of searcher to seller”
I see that you mentioned that it probably wouldn’t be a factor in BM, but I think it is and to a very large extent.
There are threads all over ebay’s boards with the same concern. All related to spurts of geographic/regional sales and then flat periods with virtually no sales. Many sellers thought it was coincidence until they found other members who have noticed the same thing….over and
over with their sales.Some members in the UK have been tracking this for well over a year and they’ve ran some search tests using members from all over the world and they have confirmed their findings. A very large group of sellers, if not all of them, are running thru the same cycles. Flurries of regional sales and then almost a blackout period, then it repeats the pattern.
What nobody knows for sure is whether this is a deliberate algorithm in BM or a technical issue because ebay runs low on server space (too many listings) and/or has problems with load balancing.
Some members are calling this a rolling blackout.
There are so many threads discussing this that you’d need several days just to read part of them.
I’d sure like to get your opinion on this as eBay is always in deny mode when questioned.
Kathy, I would have to agree with your hypothesis that geographical distance between buyer and searcher is now a factor that influences the Best Match search rankings. In fact, an eBay Chatter blog entry confirms this.
As for Listing Factors [affecting Best Match visibility], [Jeff King, Senior Director of eBay's Finding Team] explained that they include listing aspects such as end time, price, shipping cost, format (fixed vs. auction), geographical distance from the buyer, having a return policy on the item, etc.
Thanks for pointing this out.