At a glance
Average Listing Age (days) is the mean age of your active Mercari listings. It is a freshness gauge: Mercari’s search boost decays sharply after about a week, so a rising average warns that much of your catalogue has gone stale and needs re-listing.
| What it counts | The average number of days your currently active listings have been live on Mercari. |
| Sample type | Backend API data from Mercari, refreshed on the standard data refresh. |
| Why it matters | Mercari’s freshness boost lifts newly listed items in search and fades quickly after roughly 7 days. A high average means your listings are no longer riding that boost, which suppresses views and sell-through. |
| Reading the value | Lower is generally healthier. A value drifting above about 14 days signals that the boost has worn off across the catalogue and a re-listing cadence is overdue. |
| Currency | number |
| Time window | RT |
| Alert trigger | >14d (freshness eroded) |
| Sentiment key | mer_avg_listing_age |
| Roles | owner, marketing |
Calculation
The card takes each active listing’s days-since-listed and averages across the full set of live listings. It is evaluated in real time against the current date, so the average climbs steadily as listings sit unsold and resets downward whenever you re-list or add fresh items. A few very old listings can pull the average up even when most of the catalogue is recent.Worked example
A representative reading of Average Listing Age (days) for a typical Mercari reseller. Suppose, illustratively, your average listing age has crept to 19 days and the alert fires on>14d. The 7-day freshness boost has long faded for most of your catalogue, so views have softened even though prices are fair. The action is to re-list or refresh the oldest items in batches to re-enter the freshness window, rather than waiting for them to expire. Cross-reference mer_listings_expiring to see what is about to lapse anyway and mer_listings_active to size the catalogue you are refreshing. Vortex Mind traces the upstream cause, for example a cohort of listings created months ago that never sold, and Ask Viq answers plain-English questions like “which listings are dragging my average age up”.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why merchants reach for it |
|---|---|
mer_listings_active | Size the catalogue the average is computed across. |
mer_freshness_boost | See how many listings are still inside the search-boost window. |
mer_listings_expiring | Catch ageing listings before they lapse so you can re-list. |
mer_listing_quality_score | Old age plus weak quality is the worst combination for visibility. |
mer_total_listings | Compare the active set against your full listing base. |
Reconciling against Mercari
Where to look in Mercari’s own dashboard: Mercari does not publish a single average-age figure, but you can sanity-check it in the app or web by sorting your active listings by date listed. The oldest items at the top, against the newest, give you a feel for the spread the average summarises. Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:| Reason | Direction | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Period boundary. Re-listing resets an item’s age on Mercari; a recent re-list may show younger here than you expect. | Variable | Match the period range. |
| Time zone. Age is measured in whole days, so a listing created late in the day can read a day older or younger depending on time zone. | Marginal | Confirm time zone match. |
| Filter scope. Profile filters can include or exclude listing states (draft, sold) that change the active set. | Variable | Match filter settings. |