It appears that one of the rules ebay applies to determine whether a listing appears at the top when sorting by “best results” is whether an item has been newly listed.
As other users have reported, since the switch to GTC, older listings suffer from very poor visibility in the search results.
I have played around a bit and found that moving listings around, i.e. copying an entire active listing A to another active listing B and vice versa, so effectively “changing seats”, influences the position of the listing in the search results.
I know this is against ebay rules, but for the sake of science and everyone else that it would benefit, i am willing to sacrifice one of my accounts to find out if this method would be effective.
So, who wants to chip in and write a script that can make listings change seats?
I would imagine something like selecting multiple listings, then moving them around by a selectable integer or even a random number.
I never re-list now. Since GTC was enforced I stop all my unsold listings on the final day of the listing period (before auto re-list happens) and list themanew each month.More work but better results.
David
I reluctantly joined the end and list new crowd. I was a skeptic but now I have been convinced. I have been selling steady since July with very few, about 100 totally new listings added and the rest are ended and listed as new every 2 months. My sales have been steady since implementing this policy. I kept a few 3 to 6 year old listings that had 5,000 to 10,000 views with 100 or more watchers. I am slowly ending them and listing as new again if they go 1 month with out a sale. I also have been steadily increasing my prices with each new listing cycle and at least twice daily sending a 5 to 10% discount offer depending on the value of the item listed to any new watchers. This seems to be working well and the way eBay has designed the playing field.