A competitor seller appears a dozen times in the BEST MATCH search before I appear once.

[cr.love]

We have been the largest in our market for a year and have worked on expanding. The expanding of range has not equated to sales. Same prices more items available...we are thinking "how can we not sell more" its a no brainer.

Sales are currently particularly low, not even getting lookers/watchers/followers like we normally would.

Upon searching the main brand we sell, and sorting it as a "best match" (or whatever the term is) we do not appear until page three (200 listings per page) and in total we appear three times in eight pages. Our nearest competitor that does not have as much listed appears 12 times before our listing on page three.

They are getting the sales/followers/feedback (some of ours is cheaper, some of theirs is - but we are talking 5% either way). The only difference I can pick up is that they list all sizes in one listing, therefore more people are watching and looking at that particular item as all the sizes are rolled into one. Is this enough to make such a dramatic difference? Happy to hear thoughts!

[chameleon54]

As Digi has alluded to, the biggest factor in where your listings show in best match is sell through rate.

If another seller has less listings, but achieves more sales, they will appear higher in best match search. Because there listings are given greater visibility, .....they sell more stuff and the eternal circle of ebay life is complete.....they appear higher in search results.

I suspect this is a deliberate ploy by ebay to encourage popular, successful sellers to stay on the site and to discourage less successful sellers. You cant really blame them for that one, but it makes it harder for a seller to break through the glass ceiling that is best match.

And for the record, I price higher than many other sellers and wait for the right buyer with good money to come along. That means my items sit there longer and I get caned in best match searches.

[cr.love]

good words chameleon54 

[digital*ghost]

I was actually going to post this in another thread I was reading earlier, but it looks like that's sailed away somewhere, so I may as well post it here (this also means that you may find this not as relevent to you, particularly as it's more of a personal opinion stemming from the way I approach things and is pretty much how I developed my own store, so I don't mean it as a guaranteed success formula that will be appropriate for all sellers).

Separate listings can have their place for items, and I know esepcially when it comes to some stores, the majority of their listings are one-off items (pre-owned, vintage, unique handmade crafts etc etc). That is actually where I started, selling pre-owned clothing, fashion accessories and the like, while only occasionally having brand new things in multiple quantities and / or various sizes. 

If I had a store more like that now (lots of unique and separate items), I'd still try to stock some appropriate things (preferably brand new) that I could have in multiple quantities, all the time (or as close to it), some possibly as loss leaders to keep some fingers in the best match pie. Things that fit with the main products, and are preferably consumable (i.e. the type of product a buyer will need to purchase consistently). If you can establish yourself as a seller of things like that as well as the main items, it's easier to turn a casual buyer into a regular buyer, which helps dampen the downturn when things like throttling / best match rankings are affecting you. 

[cr.love]

Very helpful to the discussion digital*ghost!

I guess one of the main reasons I was avoiding lisitng multiples in the one...was the store categories. One of my store options is to view in size categories. Having four sizes in one listing with only two categories would send the best of us into a spin (!)

I will have to consider...

I would hate to change it and it have no effect....

[digital*ghost]

Being able to view by size is definitely handy at times, which wouldn't really work when you can only put a store item in two (store) categories.

I guess you would need to do a little research to see what percentage of buyers (in general) prefer that option and what percentage refine by other means (i.e. are people more inclined to look at all items in size X, or are they more inclined to look at tops or jeans only. Personally I tend to look for a specific item, and then refine by size (where available) if there doesn't seem to be many items in my size. 

Normally I'd suggest testing it with listings and if successful, switching slowly over time, so that you don't lose a bunch of watchers etc at once by creating all new listings, but that would put your store category set-up in a bit of a limbo. If you do change the format of your listings, you can set up store search links to show specific items and put them in listings, i.e a search showing all items in size X, which would help cover the bases.