Our team starts the review process by considering the listing's title, industry, and description to assess the quality of a business:
Title
Having a good title is critical to getting noticed. How closely does your listing’s title match the Buyer's search intent? Make sure that your title accurately reflects keywords, topics, and themes that Buyers are looking for.
This does not mean stuffing your title with keywords in an attempt to “game the system”, but rather carefully choosing the words you use in your title, in order to strike a balance between readability & relevancy to search terms.
Industry
When creating your listing, you must select an industry and a sub-industry. Buyers find listings in a specific industry by using search filters, or searching for specific keywords. (For example, they may look for all listings under ‘Entertainment’, or just search for the word, ‘entertainment.’) So make sure your industry categorization aligns with expectations.
Description
Buyers love rich, full descriptions. The more detail you provide, the better. Be descriptive. Listings with complete descriptions have a 3.5x higher chance of selling
Here’s what to include:
The Basics
Help Buyers get familiar with your space.
Answer questions like:
- What do you do?
- When was your business started?
- What industry do you operate in?
- How do you make money?
Operations
Provide insights into how the business operates.
Answer questions like:
- Where are the products made?
- What is the average unit cost?
- How does fulfillment work?
- Where are your customers based?
- How do you handle returns?
- What is your current feedback rating (TrustPilot / Amazon / other)?
Financial Performance
Financials are extremely important!
Answer questions like:
- Where do you currently advertise?
- How much do you spend on each channel?
- Which channel performs the best?
- What is your return on ad spend (ROAS)?
- How profitable is your business?
- How has the business been performing over the past 12 months?
About you and the team
Tell the world about your team.
Answer questions like:
- How many people are on the team?
- Who performs each duty?
- Could this business be run by one person, or are multiple people needed?
Here’s a great example of a well-written listing.
You can find some more information on how to write the best listing description here.
Popularity
A listing with proportionally higher Buyer activity is an indication of high Buyer interest. This does not mean that listings with a low number of views will not get seen! On the contrary, what we look for is proportional Buyer activity on a listing - regardless of how many views the listing has.
For example, let’s say you have two listings:
- Listing A has 1,000 views but no watchers, Buyer comments, bids, shares, or discussions started
- Listing B has 200 views, but lots of watchers, Buyer comments, bids, shares, and discussions started.
In the example above, Listing B would be considered more popular than listing A - even if it has less total views.
Seller Responsiveness
Buyers get frustrated when their questions don’t get answered. As a Seller, you should strive to reply to messages Buyers send you within 24-48 hours at the most. Sellers with numerous unanswered questions will be given less exposure than Sellers who respond to Buyer inquiries in a timely manner.
Proof of Revenue & Expenses
Providing detailed revenue & expenses, and backing up your claims with evidence is critical to getting seen. Buyers look for a P&L and verifiable revenue before enquiring.
Enter revenue & expenses going back at least 12 months, and upload proof of your claims. Make sure your evidence matches your claims. The more details you provide, the better.
- Profit and loss statement (P&L). You can either connect to QuickBooks Online, or enter and upload your own data.
- Visual evidence. Screenshots, video walkthrough, and other attachments from QuickBooks, Google AdMob and AdSense, Shopify, Amazon, PayPal, etc. Our new data integrations allow you to connect with many of those services directly where that data will be displayed and formatted in your listing as verified data from those companies.
You can find some more information about listing financials here.
Proof of Traffic
Buyers look for traffic and performance of your business. Connect your site traffic and audience overview with Google Analytics. It takes just a few moments, and will greatly boost your visibility. Listings with Google Analytics get 2.8x more views and 2.4x more watchers.
Price
Setting a price is one of the most important decisions when selling your business. It’s important to price your asset competitively. Follow our guide on pricing when possible, but most of all, be reasonable. Setting your price in a good range will ensure it gets lots of views. Read more about how to price your listing.
Listing Image
Uploading a good screenshot or listing image of your site, product, or service will help your listing stand out from the pack. An eye-catching image goes a long way - a great image will boost your visibility and can really grab Buyers’ attention! Be sure to upload a file that is a minimum of 1,340px x 580px.
Seller Verification & Track Record
Remember that Buyers aren’t just buying into a business, they’re also buying into the Seller of that business by trusting you. It is critical that Buyers feel and know you are a real, trustworthy person they can do business with.
Verifying your phone number and identity are important for trust and the easiest ways to improve your visibility. Adding a profile picture helps as well. Find out more about Seller verification.
Finally, your track record as a Seller is also very important. This includes your past transaction and feedback history, along with any disputes you may have lost. While having a sale that ended in a dispute is certainly not the end of the world, Sellers with repeated issues will suffer from poor exposure, and face potential account sanctions.
Upgrades
While it’s not a surefire way to rise to the top, purchasing an Enhanced or higher listing package will certainly help put your listing in front of more Buyers, increase your views, and thus increase your chances of a sale. See all packages available for purchase.
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