eBay

trimix · ‎09-02-2017

My last vacation my settings were you can buy but delivery will be delayed. I was penalized that i lost my top rated status and discount. I assumed that the store was on vacation mode and i would not get late shipping against my account. I am a single owner store and do not have the ability to ship while on vacation. I like to still be able to sell and when i return i would ship seeing the top of my items say i am on vacation and delay in shipping may occur.

So if i go on vacation i need to shut down and not allow sales at all. Kind of seems like a mistake because eBay does not get fee's. Why would they penalizes our accounts due to vacation setting and still wanting to sell?

swenson8781 · ‎09-02-2017

I don't have an answer as to why they do that, seems silly to me also. BUT, I do know that when one goes on vacation for any period of time that exceeds the ability to ship items that it's best to 'hide' all of your listings so they are not available for purchase. That is an option in the vacation settings for store owners, and for non-store owners it's best to simply end all of your listings.

I know it's a pain, but the recourse is what you experienced. They DO still penalize a seller for not shipping on time, regardless of the message displayed to buyers. If those items are not visible/not for sale, then no loss can be had.

Sorry that happened to you 😞

squinkercat59 · ‎09-02-2017

I use vacation settings occasionally when I have to go out of state, and there's a setting to hide listings. What it seems to do is not hide them at all, but rather buyers get a message that I am not processing sales at that time, and to put the item on their watch list to purchase later. This is what I discovered, when I checked out my Ebay while on the road. I also set auctions to begin while I'm gone, so they all end right when I get back and I have some income right away. I have to monitor it all while I'm gone in case anyone has questions about the auction items, but it seems to run smoothly and I've never had purchases made from the Buy It Nows in the store while I'm away.

goodluckselling · ‎09-02-2017

@trimix wrote:
My last vacation my settings were you can buy but delivery will be delayed. I was penalized that i lost my top rated status and discount. I assumed that the store was on vacation mode and i would not get late shipping against my account. I am a single owner store and do not have the ability to ship while on vacation. I like to still be able to sell and when i return i would ship seeing the top of my items say i am on vacation and delay in shipping may occur.

So if i go on vacation i need to shut down and not allow sales at all. Kind of seems like a mistake because eBay does not get fee's. Why would they penalizes our accounts due to vacation setting and still wanting to sell?

I see a few misunderstanding in your post. First let me say you have a few options when you use the vacation setting. You can show your items and allow buyers to purchase. You can also have it so buyers can not make purchases from your store while on vacation.

I understand the desire to make sales while on vacation. It sounds like the best of both worlds, but lets think about this a bit. If you had a B&M location and you as you say are a single owner and employee of the store, how would you go on vacation and still have the store open for business?

Your desires do not change the policies you agree to, nor does it make buyers happy when they have to wait a long time to get delivery, and because of this all the setting you have in place will still be active. Just another point that I think you might not know as well is that regardless if you are on vacation or not you still have to tend to any issues that come up while you are away. Everything just does not stand still. Buyers still deserve to have the kind of experience they anticipated when they purchased from you.

Yet another point I feel you might not be familiar with is that if you are going to keep all your listing live while on vacation setting, why use that feature at all? I would just change the handling time for all your listing to cover the time you are away.

Now about the word penalized. How are you penalized? It seems to me it is the buyer who is being penalized by you the seller who wants to vacation and still conduct business as usual.

All small sellers like you and I need to remember buyers do not have to buy from us on eBay. There are dozens of big box sellers and wholesale manufactures who can fill the void and also offer

better pricing,
customer service,
speedy shipping, and
refunds without hassles.

We need to excel in the things we can do an outstanding job at or our numbers will get smaller and smaller.

Good Luck Selling!

sandmansales · ‎09-02-2017

I'm getting married this weekend and have been on vaca since Thursday till next Tue. Put my store on vaca. Change my handling time to reflect time gone (this eliminates all of ebay's various defects.) Bulk add a note in each listing in red that I will be gone and will ship on x date etc.

I make a lot of sales while on vaca and have never had a problem. Have had 3 sales so far this time and will ship all of them on Tue.

~Why be a second rate version of someone else when you can be a first rate version of yourself~

partial*eclipse · ‎09-02-2017

@trimix wrote:
My last vacation my settings were you can buy but delivery will be delayed. I was penalized that i lost my top rated status and discount. I assumed that the store was on vacation mode and i would not get late shipping against my account. ...So if i go on vacation i need to shut down and not allow sales at all....

Unfortunately, the basic vacation setting is nothing more than an "Away" message. You can either use the option to hide your fixed price listings so you have no sales (a checkbox at the bottom of the vacation page) OR revise your handling time so that it reflects your actual anticipated shipping date.

The vacation settings and the Help page about them were set up long before eBay started using shipping time as a seller evaluation measure, so this discrepancy didn't matter at the time. Just a simple one-sentence update in the Help age would save a lot of aggravation and disappointment for Store subscribers like you who are doing their best to be conscientious sellers.

brian_burke@ebay

kattinsanity · ‎09-02-2017

I don't have a store so I recently had a family emergency in another state. I had a few mailings to do so I took the items with me and shipped from MN. BUT I didn't get my tracking downloaded until a day past my 3 day handling period. Even though they were shipped on time the tracking wasn't downloaded on time. I ship over the counter. I got 2 late downloads against me dropping me to 97.?? in the "tracking & validated" part of my dashboard.

That was enough of that~~I ended all 100+ of my listings. When things settled a bit where I was going to be back home more often I started listing things again but with a 5 day handling time to be safe. Now I'm back to a 3 day handling time. I'll still have to be gone a few times a month but it will only be overnight trips.

If another emergency arises I'll just end all my listings again before I leave~~better that & not selling anything rather than losing my TRS.