The SNAD spectrum

Some would see the SNAD equation as black & white.

A SNAD is true or false, and such is detectable by looking at what arrived, and looking at the listing.

But reality is grey.

There is a black zone, for sure. Stuff which just isn't as described, anyone can see that.

There is also a white zone, but it's very small.

The rest is grey.

The essence of a successful description is being the eyes, nose, and touch of buyer. What buyer understands they are sending money in for, matches exactly to what comes out of the package.

Of course, that's an imperfect process, and in that imperfection lies the grey.

Some, arguing from the seller perspective, see most of grey zone as white: not a SNAD. Seller has done his job, or at least sincerely tried to.

But if mail delivery commerce really worked that way, sellers seeking to maximize profits would create listings which had a good chance of generating grey zone sales.

The classic grey zone SNAD is "bad news buried down in the text". Sort of dead middle, by my metric.

Darker than that is the item which meets the letter of the description, but is not much useful for the implied purpose of the item.

Lighter than that is the listing which accidentally allows buyer to supply a key parameter.

By allowing buyer to declare anything in the grey zone to be SNAD, which is pretty much what we have now, in order to maximize long term profits, sellers must manage the grey zone. First, by focusing on making listings succeed in communicating. And second, by graciously picking up the pieces when the listing fails, despite seller's best effort.