Here's another great reason to list in multi-quantity!

A fixed priced item's best match ranking will also be based on the number of recent sales that an individual listing has had.

Best Match Overview

Best Match is the default sort option on the eBay site. It evaluates each listing individually based on different factors. Listings are then sorted by their best match score.

Note that the factors used to evaluate listings can vary by category. The factors used can include (but are not limited to):

• Relevance of the title and category
• Total price
• Seller DSRs
• Ending time
• Recent sales

Conditional Best Match Overview

Conditional Best Match is a feature that allows us to sort different formats based on different criteria and then intermingle the results

Why? The criteria to evaluate a fixed price listing needs to be different from the criteria to evaluate an auction listing based on the fundamental differences between the two formats. For example:

• Time Ending:
  Fixed Price: A good fixed price item should sell immediately, not when it is about to end
  Auction: All auction items with at least one bid and reserve met sell once there is no time left
• Price:
  Fixed Price: The final selling price of a fixed price listing is determined by the seller
  Auction: The final selling price of an auction listing is determined by the buyers/bidders

Sort Criteria per Format

• Fixed Price sort
  Includes (but is not limited to) relevance of the title and category, total price (price plus shipping), the listing's recent sales and seller DSRs
• Auction sort
  Mainly sorted by Time ending, relevancy, and seller DSRs (but is not limited to these factors).

Recent Sales Overview

Recent Sales measures the number of sales an individual listing has had recently. This is one of the many factors used in Best Match sorting. The recent sales factor is most evident for multi-quantity listings.

Why recent sales?

• A purchase from a buyer is a great way to measure satisfaction
• The search experience is cleaner for buyers when there are not duplicate listings.

Note that multi-quantity listings are not possible and not rational for all categories, so the weight given to recent sales as a factor will vary from one category to another as appropriate.

Success strategy for sellers

• For items that should be listed in fixed price (for example, lots of inventory, seller knows the price, listing may need to be on site for longer than 7/10 days), sellers should list in multi-quantity (for the same low insertion fee 35 cents) for long duration
• The more sales you have per listing, the greater the opportunity for better visibility and standing apart from the competition

Note that the recent sales score for a listing is carried over to the first relisted item only, as illustrated here:

How the Moving Window Affects Recent Sales

Recent sales are calculated using a moving window. As time passes, older sales that once contributed to the Recent Sales score are dropped in favor of that day's sales. This keeps the score fresh and ensures that it better reflects a seller's current practices. This also prevents  sellers from accumulating an infinitely high recent sales scores and dominating a category.

Here is an illustration of how Recent Sales might be calculated for a listing. Keep in mind that these numbers are only to illustrate the concept. You can't assume that 1 sale = 1 Recent Sales "point" and so on. Also, the moving window size varies by category and is subject to change. For this example, I chose a 4-day window.

1. Day 1: A seller lists 100 iPods on day one. She starts the day with a score of 0, sells 10 iPods, and ends the day with a score of 10.
2. Day 2: The next day, she's still within her 4-day window, so the score from yesterday carries over, and she starts the day with a score of 10. She sells 2 iPods that day, and ends the day with a score of 12.
3. Day 3: The next day, she's still within her 4-day window, so the score from yesterday carries over, and she starts the day with a score of 12. She doesn't sell any iPods that day, so she ends the day with her original score of 12.
4. Day 4: She relists her item, and because it's the first relist from her original item, her Recent Sales score carries over from the original item.
   Here's the important part. Because it is a moving window, it's not the final score "12" that carries over, it's the score from each day (10+2+0). And as days move outside the window, they are dropped from the recent sales score and replaced by the most recent sales.
   So she starts the day with a score of 12 (10+2+0). She sells 20, for a final score of 32 (10+2+0+20). Tomorrow, Day 1 will move outside the 4-day window, so will be dropped from her final score.
5. Day 5: She starts the day with a score of 32 (10+2+0+20). She sells 13 iPods. By the end of the day, the score from Day 1 is outside the 4-day window, so it is dropped from the total and replaced with the score from that day's sales. Her final total is 35 (2+0+20+13).
6. Day 6: She starts the day with a score of 35 (2+0+20+13). She sells 18 iPods. By the end of the day, the score from Day 12 is outside the 4-day window, so it is dropped from the total and replaced with the score from that day's sales. Her final total is 51 (0+20+13+18).