How listings are ranked

Newest first. That’s the whole ranking. On the browse page, listings appear in the order they were published, most recent at the top. Nothing else moves a listing up or down.

In particular: we do not sell placement. There is no paid promotion, no sponsored slot, no boost, and no arrangement by which a seller can pay to appear higher. None of these exist as features, so none of them can be bought.

• Payment. No seller has ever paid for position, and there is no mechanism to.
• Commission rate. Founding sellers on 0% and standard sellers on 8% are ranked identically. We earn less on a founding seller’s sale and rank them exactly the same — which is worth stating plainly, because the incentive to do otherwise is obvious.
• Shrimpsurance. Subscribing changes when a seller is paid out, not where they appear.
• Seller rating or sales volume. Neither is currently an input to browse order. A well-reviewed seller and a brand-new one are ordered only by when they listed.
• Any relationship with ShrimpBay. Being known to us, or being an early adopter, does not move a listing.

It suits what’s being sold. Shrimp listings are live stock in small quantities that sells out and gets relisted, so recency is a good proxy for availability — an older listing is more likely to be depleted or stale. It also gives a new seller a genuine chance of being seen on their first day, which a popularity-weighted ranking structurally denies.

It is also the ranking we can describe honestly in one sentence, and verify. A weighted model tuned on engagement would probably shift more units and would be considerably harder to state truthfully.

• Pack options on a listing are ordered smallest quantity first, and packs larger than the stock a seller actually holds are hidden rather than shown and refused at checkout.
• A seller’s own shop page shows their listings newest first, same as browse.
• ShrimpMap sorts by distance from a postcode you enter, and by nothing else. That distance is calculated in your own browser — your location is never sent to us or to sellers.
• Care guide pages list every live listing of that species, newest first.

Distinct from ranking, but worth stating in the same place. A listing stops being shown if it sells out, if the seller archives it, if the species is removed from our allow-list, or if the seller is suspended. Suspension is a decision with a stated reason and an appeal — see our Terms.

Tell us. This is a statement about how our own code behaves, and if you can demonstrate the ordering doesn’t match what’s written here, that’s a bug in one or the other and we want to know which. shrimpbayshop@gmail.com.