I need your advice store owners! Store vacation vs coverage

[gloryglorygifts]

I will be having surgery at the end of the month and I am contemplating putting the store on vacation vs. having someone take care of things for me.

I looked into how to do it but I was wondering if there are repercussions to putting it on vacation? I'm not planning on it being more than a few days, but you just never know what life is going to give you. Will vacation mode affect the listings and where they are on pages, when I once again have them displayed? My other question is how does putting your store on vacation affect your billing? When I put the store back on and the fixed price listings are once again visible am I charged all over again if they fall into the middle of a billing cycle?

Thanks for your help.

[partial*eclipse]

Billing is not affected by putting your listings on vacation, either with or without the "Hide" Option, because the listings stay active.

[dtexley3]

A couple things to remember. 

Putting a store on vacation does NOT stop any auctions you have active so if you run auctions make sure they end in time for you to deal with them, including non-paying and/or slow paying buyers.

If you don't use the option to hide your listings you will want to increase your handling time and use the send a vacation message feature to notify buyers that you will not be able to ship until xx/xx/xxxx.  

Personally I would change the handling time regardless of the hide listings feature as I don't trust how items in people's watch list would work.  I think they can still be seen and purchased, so belt and suspenders are in order.

[threshold.sales.group]

Some really good points already, but if you are having surgery, imo I'd simply put the store on vacation and hide the listings.  My guess is that you'll want to focus 100% on your recovery and not having to worry even a little bit about eBay orders is going to be appreciated. When you get back up to speed it's easy turn things back on and in a day or two the business will be going as if you'd never left. It'll be something to look forward to as you recover. 

[sharingtheland]

I always change the handling time.  I would always recommend that sellers do that in these situations.

[gloryglorygifts]

Great tips! All good to know. I was just wondering if there was any impact to an ebay store after being closed for any amount of time and how the billing worked. This is a family business so I do have back up I just don't want to overwhelm them, as this isn't the only place we sell, but this store is my responsibility. I feel more confident in putting it on vacation mode, to lessen the workload on them.

You've been very helpful. Thanks!

[swenson8781]

I had surgery last year, and 'hid' all my listings, then simply took them out of 'hiding' once I was feeling up to selling again as usual.  Hiding the listings allows for flexibility, as I didn't know how soon I'd be up & ready to go, turned out was quicker than I expected, but didn't have to worry about that on top of everything else.

Also, when you 'unhide' your listings, it does take a few hours for items to show up in search, and up to 24-48 hours for all items to be re-populated in your store.  However, the upswing is that ALL of your items are re-indexed, so you might receive a bump up in search placement.  

I put my store on hidden vacation this past November, and started getting sales again with 24 hours after removing it, so items were visible pretty quickly IMO.

[zzydny]

Even if you put your store on vacation and hide your items, it is still possible to make a sale.  I know because I found out the hard way:  the buyer had my item saved on his watch list so he was able to buy anyway.  Fortunately, due to a holiday weekend, I was able to get to the PO on time but I was really shocked that someone could buy when I thought they couldn't.

Listen to the folks who suggest long handling times.  It really could make a difference if someone has your items watch-listed.

I hope that your surgery goes smoothly and that you heal quickly.