On a marketplace website, what would be a good way to signal sellers that a certain item is in high demand?

Question

On a marketplace website, I'd like to signal sellers that a certain item is in high demand, but is rarely offered. In your opinion, what would be the best way to notate that?

Answer 1

Have you tried to notify sellers by email about these business opportunities ? You could also display a system message on seller's dashboard, like this:

Answer 2

The problem is that you want to be able to promote the items without the need to have a lot of explanation about what your criteria are.

I would suggest a 'hot list' which is always visible on the site (e.g. a sidebar). 'Hot items' would be a 1-10 list showing the items and linking to them. The criteria for being on the list would be a mix of high demand and scarcity. You could also further encourage people to buy by saying how many were left / how many had been sold in the past day / hour

Answer 3

One way is to present a "Most searched" table and show the amount of products available for each result and its subtree (if available).

Then you could add a "demand satisfaction indicator" column to show the relationship between those variables and let the user order by colums (most searched/ highest unsatisfied demand).

^{download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups}

Answer 4

The way I've seen "high demand" represented is a little flame icon next to the product signifying its a "hot item". In my opinion that alone shows that the items is not only in high demand but will also not last long/isn't always available, but if you don't think that latter message is portrayed effectively enough you can add a second "limited time" icon.