Should You Put Your eBay Store On Vacation?

Hey there fellow eBayers! In light of the most recent post all about traveling while reselling, I thought this may be something best to cover following it. Therefore, today I’d like to talk about the Vacation Mode option that you may or may not be aware of in your eBay store. Let’s get going!

• Related: What’s Still Selling During Summer Slow Down?

What is “Vacation Mode?”

Vacation Mode is a tool in your eBay store that you can use while you go on vacation or away from your business for a bit. The option is now referred to as “Time Away.”

This is best used whenever you need to go out of town, or perhaps just need a short break from all the reselling going on! If you’re looking for an easy fix to let buyers know you’re not currently active, just simply edit your settings.

If you’re looking however to keep your store moving forward, stay tuned as we’ll be talking more about that in a bit!

Where is Vacation Mode Located on your ebay store?

You can find this toggle button on your ebay store by navigating through the following tips:

1. Go to your eBay Seller Hub
2. Hover over and bring up your Overview Tab
3. Scroll down to the 4th box on the left of your screen, to view the Seller Tools section
4. Click on Time Away

From here, you can easily schedule time away, and even create an automated response to set up for your buyers to view while you’re gone!

This can help alleviate any worries they may have to do with later shipment dates, or getting concerned about why you may not be as responsive to any questions sent your way.

• Related: How to Deal with Negative Reviews as a Reseller

How To Put Your ebay Store on Vacation Mode

1. Go to your seller hub.
2. Scroll down to your selling tools.
3. Click Edit Time Away.
4. Select Allow sales for up to 15 days while you are away.
5. Select start date.
6. Select time and adjust for correct time zone.
7. Under End Date, select the date you will return to normal sales.
8. Click Apply.

 

How Do You Set Up an Automated Message in ebay Vacation Mode?

1. Follow the steps above.
2. Once on the time away screen select edit message under Automated Messages.
3. Set the start date of the message to go out.
4. Select the end date or date when the message no longer sends.
5. Enter your response in the Automatic response section.

Should You Use the Vacation Mode Tool?

This is of course up to your preference, but I’m happy to share my opinion with the following points in mind.

1. When you use this tool, it may deter certain buyers from your store, since they may want shipment to be faster.
2. Not answering questions in a timely manner upset some customers, therefore leading to complaints or even negative reviews.
3. Customers may need an answer quickly so that they can decide whether or not to purchase the item in question from your store, or from another seller’s store instead. This can lead to a lost sale.
4. This may show eBay that you’re not as serious about your account as a seller. Staying active is the only way to prove to eBay that your listings are deserving of views! Views = Sales!
5. This puts your shipping, listing, and answers to questions on halt. Which could potentially lead to a large backlog of all of the above when you return to normalcy. Keep this in mind when turning this mode on, knowing that you’ll need to set aside some time when you return to catch up with all of this activity that happened when you were away.

• Related: Reselling Was Never My Dream Job.

What You Could Do Instead with your ebay store

Clearly, I’m not a personal fan of the Vacation Mode tool as you could probably tell from the points listed above. I’ve worked around this problem in the past by properly preparing for when I went away and staying active while away from my store.

Of course, this is again just a personal preference. Please do whatever works best for you and your business! This is just how it’s worked for me in the past, so I’d like to share about my experiences in doing so.

Please follow up with my previous post listed below, to view the best pointers on how to take your resell business with you on the go.

• Related: How To Resell While Traveling

Keep in mind that you’ll want to plan ahead as much as possible so that you can have the time desired to spend away with your loved ones.

You can do both! It’s possible and I know that because I’ve experienced this firsthand. Your answering capability may dip up and down just a smidge if you’re scuba diving or rock climbing or on a rollercoaster and can’t answer right away of course!

However! Making the proper plans to stay active in your store while you’re away will ensure that when you’re ready to get back to business, your business will still be able to give back to you.

Thank You!

A giant thanks to everyone that has supported me this far into my journey including today’s blog Should you put your eBay store on vacation! I greatly appreciate you returning to read my posts and hope that you will continue to drop by in the future.

Please feel free to drop any comments below that you would like to add! I am always open to advice, suggestions, or even hearing related stories of your own!