Selling Hiatus

[*applecore*]

I am going on a selling hiatus and plan to resume in 2022 so I can focus back on my other job this summer/fall- I downgraded my store to "basic" but its really more to get rid of stale items.

I'm currently a top rated seller, will I lose this if I don't continue to sell items? Is it better to keep a store and pay that monthly fee for a basic store or just cancel a store all together and start new in 2022 and re-list those items?

Any Thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

[briancards]

I would look at the requirements/criteria for becoming (or in your case remaining) a top rated seller, then predict if you think you will still meet the requirements or not during the hiatus. Good luck. 

[luckythewinner]

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@*applecore* wrote:

I'm currently a top rated seller, will I lose this if I don't continue to sell items?

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You will lose Top Rated Status if you fail to meet the criteria for Top Rated Status. 

Since we ...

a) cannot see your account; and 

b) cannot see into the future

... we have no idea whether you will lose Top Rated Status or not. 

[katzrul15 · Accepted solution]

We did the same thing summer 2020 due to the pandemic and limited access to off-site storage during the lockdown period in our area.  Our State was "purple" in all counties for a while, so you were not supposed to be out except medical, grocery, etc.

We did not lose TRS status as we had sold enough in the rolling prior months - we were only gone 3 months though.  Look at your Seller hub dashboard - it will give you an idea what your totals are, etc.

We pulled our listings into a 3rd party vendor and put our store in vacay mode and paid for the store each month (it just billed our CC on file back then - now, I do not think that is possible).  Someone on here had told us that our listings would poof (forget the timeline) and I did not want to risk coming back and having to start over.

Only you can decide what is best for you.  I did not want to have to "start over", so we paid for the store and stayed in vacation mode. 

Even our selling limits did not change, etc.  No clue if that was a fluke or because we paid for the store or if they made accommodations due to covid.  I was afraid that part might change since no new sales were hitting the totals, but even that worked out.

Without knowing what your current sales totals are for the prior 12 months, hard to give you any advice.  Due to the pandemic, we had really strong sales thru that June and we took part of July, Aug and 1/2 Sept off.  If we had not had that pandemic sales boost, not certain how it might have worked out missing almost a whole quarter.

btw - I too work FT and I kinda wished I had left my store up and running, just not listed anything new and ended listings that might be a pain to process.  It took me forever in Sept to get back into a rhythm and to find stuff again, get back into listing.  While the break was "wonderful", it was stressful trying to ramp up for the holidays all at 1 time, etc.  We did our Christmas in July sale and then shut down.  It is hard to have momentum, crank it down and then get it up and going again.  At least it seemed like it for us.

Good luck whatever you decide.  Hard to work FT and do this as well.  Especially these days.  🙂    

[coolections]

When you return you will be considered a brand new newbie seller. You will have both listing and $$ limits. You will also have holds on your funds.

[chapeau-noir]

@*applecore*  I used to sell seasonally, and this is what I know:

1.  Don't worry about the TRS status - yes, you will lose it because if you're gone for over three months, your sales will fall to the point where you won't meet the monetary criteria.  I used to lose it every year for that reason and get it back again after a few months of selling.

2.  I would close my store as I didn't want to pay subscription for the four months I was gone.  My settings were always saved and I'd just resubscribe and start listing again - I called it my 'pop up store.'  The biggest risk is someone else claiming your store name.

3. I never had seller holds or anything else - that could be because I wasn't gone long enough for those to kick in - that is the one thing I would investigate.

[nguyenh-9480]

I don't think you will keep your top rated status if you don't maintain your selling. But it's up to you. Good luck.

[katzrul15]

It's still just 100 transactions and $1k in sales in a rolling 12 months, correct?  Did it change?

[*applecore*]

Thanks- I just cancelled my store subscription for now as I don't plan to list any items here for awhile. I just set my store to vacation which you can do a month at a time and will have them go live for a bit and then just keep doing this so I don't lose the listings and have to create hundreds of listings again!