Leaving town

[firestar914]

I have some listings that are ending in the next few days starting tomorrow, the problem is that I have a family emergency and have to leave town this afternoon. What can I do about the listings that are selling? Normally I ship the day after receiving payment or sooner.

[klassic*kids]

Sorry to hear about the emergency.  As far as your listings you can do a bulk edit change of handling time on everything -- you can make it as far out as 10 days for instance to cover yourself.  Unfortunately, though, with items that already have bids on them can't be changed.  What I would try with them is emailing the winner explaining the situation and ask them if they can refrain from paying until further notice.  If they can't/won't do that then your dashboard will likely be effected with missing handling time and late shipments.

Hope all is well with your family situation.

[lintbrush*]

End the ones that don't have bids.

Can you take the ones that do with you?

If not, one option is that you can cancel the bids and then end the auction.  The only thing with this is that eBay will charge you final value fees based on the highest bid showing.  You only get one free pass per year on cancelling with bids.  If you go that route, cancel the highest bid item first.

If you decide to cancel, I'd send a note to the buyer explaining what you've said here.  Let them know you'll be relisting as soon as you get back in town. 

Or depending on how long you'll be gone, you can just take the late shipment hit.

[luckythewinner]

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@firestar914 wrote:

I have some listings that are ending in the next few days starting tomorrow, the problem is that I have a family emergency and have to leave town this afternoon. What can I do about the listings that are selling? Normally I ship the day after receiving payment or sooner.

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Some options are:

1) cancel bids and end the listings now

2) Let them end while you are away and hope late shipping and/or buyer anger doesn't affect your account too much

3) end the listings without cancelling bids, sell at the current prices, and take the sold items with you and ship them while you are away

4) do not cancel bids, take the items you think will sell with you and ship them while you are away, and hope nothing else sells.

[csevenshoes]

Greetings,

I went out of town once and was unable to ship items. As soon as the item closed I immediately emailed the winner to making him/her aware that I was out of town and there would be a delay on shipping. I gave them an estimated shipping day and apologies for the change. Most customers were very understanding and caused no problem, however eBay did give me a hit on my shipping time. Now I automatically give myself 3 days for shipping although I work very hard to ship within 24 hours.

Another thing that is possible, if you have a house sitter. My mom visits my house when I am out of town. IF I already have a few items that have a bid I pre-package them and when the bid close I purchase the labels email them to her and have her to print them, stick them on the package and ship it out of me. I did not think of that the first time I went out of town now that's something I do automatically just in case I need her help with shipping things for me.

I hope this helps. Safe travels to you.
Seven

[partial*eclipse]

Out of your 21 listings, 17 are either fixed price or are auctions that have not received bids.  You can  end those with no fees, defects, or other penalties.  They all have more than 12 hours left, so you could also  just  revise the handling time to reflect your actual return date when you can ship them, if you know when that will be.

You have 4 auctions that have a bid.  They also have more than 12  hours left, so  I recommend that you just end those and choose the option to cancel all the bids and end with no  transaction.  You could send a message to each bidder  explaining that you will relist when you return or you can add a line at the bottom of each listing's Description section.

When you end an auction early after it has  a bid, you are charged the same final value fee as if you had sold to the high bidder. The first one each year is free.  So start with the highest-price one!  To end an auction early, use this form:

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?EndingMyAuction

[reallynicestamps]

17 are either fixed price or are auctions that have not received bids.  You can  end those with no fees, defects, or other penalties.

I agree . End those immediately.

They will go into your Unsolds and rest there happily for 60 to 90 days.

You won't be refunded listing fees on them . You will pay regular listing fees to relist them.

You have 4 auctions that have a bid.

Package them and take them with you.

I'm going to assume you will be able to log into your account while you are away. Even if you can't in the place you are staying, most public libraries have internet access.

This should not be  problem if you are driving to your emergency, but is definitely more difficult if you are flying or even bussing.