The condition grade is not about this sale.
Round "used, a few marks" up to "excellent condition" and the worst case is not a disappointed buyer. It is that they open an item-not-as-described case, that the case lands on your defect rate, and that your defect rate belongs to the account rather than to this listing. Best Match reads what the account has done. So one generous adjective on a £20 pair of trainers can quietly cost the visibility of everything else you have for sale, which is why this tool will not upgrade a grade for you however much better it would read.
It works the other way as well. Naming the scuff, the missing insole, the fact the box went years ago — none of that costs you a sale you were going to get, because the buyer finds all three the moment the parcel opens. The only thing you are choosing is whether they find out before they pay or after.
The ranking happens in the fields with no prose in them
eBay gives the title eighty characters and then keeps the searchable detail somewhere else entirely: item specifics. Brand, style, size, colour, material, department, fastening — structured values that eBay's own search and the search engines outside it both index and filter on. A listing with one specific filled and a beautifully written paragraph is invisible in a way that a listing with eight specifics and a plain paragraph is not. So a blank optional specific is scored here as a defect rather than an omission, and the eighty characters go on words a buyer would type instead of on "L@@K" and "MUST SEE", which eat the budget and breach the listing rules on the way past.
What else gets scored
Whether free postage is genuinely free or the postage has simply moved into the price, since the buyer compares the total either way and so does the ranking. Whether a dispatch time and a named service appear at all, or the buyer is left to guess and then message you to ask. Whether a product identifier is present on a new branded item, that being what attaches the listing to the catalogue. Whether the photographs show the actual item rather than the manufacturer's press shot. And whether the account is really a private one, because volume, repeat identical stock and everything always being as-new are the pattern that makes it a business — and a business seller's obligations on returns are not the same ones.
What a fix looks like
As suppliedNIKE TRAINERS SIZE 9 GREAT CONDITION L@@K MUST SEE FAST POSTAGE. Item specifics: Brand: Nike. Everything else left blank. Nike trainers, worn a few times, good condition, any questions ask. Free postage! £45.
What comes backNike Air Max 90 Trainers UK 9 White/Grey Mesh Lace-Up Used Good Condition. Specifics: Brand Nike · Style Air Max 90 · UK Size 9 · Colour White/Grey · Upper Mesh/Leather · Department Men · Fastening Lace-Up. Worn [MUST SUPPLY: roughly how many times]. Sole and upper [MUST SUPPLY: any wear or marks, and photograph each one]. Original box [MUST SUPPLY: included or not]. Dispatched within [MUST SUPPLY: dispatch time] by [MUST SUPPLY: which service]. £42 plus £3.99 tracked postage.
Seven specifics arrived where there had been one, and every value came out of the seller's own title rather than out of thin air. The free postage went because it was never free — the price had been carrying it, and the buyer was always going to work that out. And "good condition" did not turn into a better adjective. It turned into a question with the seller's name against it.
