“No sales” is not a diagnosis, it is a symptom: behind it there is always a specific point in the funnel where the product card loses the buyer. That is what you have to fix — otherwise the budget goes on advertising a card that, say, simply is not indexed. Here is the diagnosis step by step, from impressions to buyout.
How the diagnosis works
A product card's funnel is simple: impressions → clicks → cart → order → buyout. Sales break at one of these transitions, and each transition has its own causes and its own cure. Work through the steps from the top down — how the metrics of each step are built is covered in the guide on the product card funnel.
Step 1. Are there any impressions
Open the analytics in your seller account and look at the card's impressions over the last few weeks.
There are no impressions, or almost none. Buyers do not see the card at all — looking further down the funnel is pointless. The causes:
- The card is not indexed for the right queries: the title and attributes do not match demand — covered in the guide on a card not showing in search.
- The product is not stocked in regional warehouses — in those regions the card is simply not shown: how geo-based search results work.
- The card is under a hidden demotion after spikes in activity — the signs and how to check them are in the guide on shadow bans.
- The card is hidden or under review — that is not about SEO any more, it is about status: what to do when a product card is blocked.
Step 2. Impressions but no clicks
People see the card but do not open it — the problem is how it looks in search results. Look at the combination of “cover + price + rating + delivery times” through a buyer's eyes, next to the competitors:
- The cover does not stand out from its neighbors or is unreadable at a small size — cured by testing covers; the method is in the guide on A/B testing the main photo.
- The price sits above the corridor of the search results with no visible reason.
- The rating is lower than the neighbors', or there are noticeably fewer reviews.
What counts as a normal CTR and how to raise it is covered in the guide on product card CTR.
Step 3. Clicks but no orders
The buyer opened the card and left — which means it did not convince them inside:
- The photos do not answer the questions: no angles, no details, no sizes.
- The description and attributes are incomplete — the product also drops out of the filters.
- Reviews: there are too few, they are old, or an unanswered negative one sits at the top — how reviews affect conversion is covered in a separate guide.
- Buyer questions with no seller answers.
Step 4. Sales were there — and then dropped
A separate case: the card was working, then it sagged. Look for what changed:
- Positions have dropped. Check the search results across your semantic core: how to track positions.
- There was a gap in stock levels. After going out of stock a card loses the statistics it had built up and slides back down the results.
- Competitors joined a promo and you did not. Against promotional search results your price became uncompetitive — how to calculate joining a promo is in the guide on the economics of promotions.
- The season ended. Check the demand trend for the whole category, not just your own card — the calendar is in the guide on seasonal products.
A common mistake: fixing everything at once
The worst scenario is changing the cover, the price and the description in parallel while switching on advertising: even if sales come back, you will never know what actually worked. A step-by-step diagnosis is cheaper: one funnel transition — one hypothesis — one change — one measurement.
