Visibility packages: when they earn their money and when they are wasted

Visibility packages put a product in a prominent place: the top of its category, the home page, among suggested results.

They work like any promotional tool, which is to say they amplify what is already there. If the listing convinces, more people arrive to be convinced. If it does not, more people arrive not to be.

That is why the first question is not what the package costs, but whether the product would be ready to receive its traffic.

There are three conditions and all can be checked in five minutes. The photograph must make clear what the item is. The name must contain the words a dentist would use to search for it. The price must survive comparison with other sellers of the same product.

If one of the three is missing, the package brings visits that bounce, and the money leaves without a trace.

There are, on the other hand, three situations where promotion makes sense, and they are fairly precise.

The first is a product new to the catalogue. With no history, no reviews and no sales behind it, a freshly listed item struggles to surface: promotion gives it the first push and then the product walks by itself.

The second is stock that needs clearing. Sound goods that will not move need an audience, not a discount, and promotion delivers exactly that.

The third is seasonality. If a category has a predictable peak, pushing a few weeks earlier costs less than chasing it when everyone is already pushing.

It is worth stating plainly what promotion does not do. It does not correct a price that is out of the market: if you cost twenty per cent more than the rest, being first only means more people see that you cost more.

And it does not stand in for a catalogue. A store with five promoted products remains a store with five products, and whoever arrives notices immediately.

The sensible way to try them is one only: one package on one product, for a defined period, looking at before and after. If sales do not move, the problem was not visibility, and that is a piece of information worth the price of the package.

In summary: promotion amplifies what exists rather than creating it, photograph name and price need fixing first, it makes sense on new products, idle stock and seasonal peaks, it does not correct a price out of the market, and it is tested one product at a time measuring before and after.