Actually, I do think eBay favour private or newbie sellers via best match.

Their reasoning would be that if these are encouraged by a few sales, they may well take up a store subscription.

Interesting thinking, dazzledayz. That would actually make sense as part of the whole picture.

Countess, there is very little about best match that is either transparent or understandable.

None of the rules eBay sets regarding seller perormance seem to apply to rankings via that algorithm.

I do see a fairly high number of newbie sellers appearing in the upper echelons of best match results though.

I've come to the opinion, as have many others, that BM has become a methodology whereby sales can be spread around according to the company's desires.