How to put your eBay Store on Vacation Mode

Yay, it’s time for a vacation. Now. let’s make sure that potential buyers know that you are on vacation by turning on your vacation settings.

First, there are two important settings in the Store Vacation Settings section that you need to get familiar with.

1. When store vacation settings are on, eBay will post a message that alerts buyers to your “away” status, as well as your return date. This message will appear above your listing and on your store home page.
2. Hide and block purchases from your fixed price listings. This setting allows you to hide or to keep all of our listings live. However, please note, if you have Auction Style Listings that are currently open for bid, these will not be hidden from search and will remain open for bids until they close. So, it’s best to plan for your auction style listings to end before you leave or after you return.

Now, let’s take a look at your vacation settings by following these 3 steps.

How to put your eBay Store on Vacation Mode

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1. Go to the Change settings section of the Messages tab in My eBay, select Turn on under Vacation settings.
2. In the text box, enter a short note informing your buyers that you're away.
3. Check the box beside Show people the date that you'll be back, and enter your return date.
4. To hide your fixed price listings, check the box beside Keep people from buying your fixed price listings while you're on vacation.
5. Lastly, you have the option to preview the message by clicking the “Preview” button at the very bottom

Lastly once you are back from vacation make sure to reopen your eBay Store by simply select Turn off under Vacation settings.

There are a couple caveats to know when you set your eBay store on vacation mode:

• eBay will continue to charge fees, such as your eBay Store subscription fee and listing-related fees while vacation settings are on.
• It does take several days for your listings to become hidden after you updated your eBay Store vacation setting.
• Once the vacation settings are “on”, they stay “on” until you turn them off.
• Once you turn your vacation settings “off”, it can take several days for your listings to appear in the search results.

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Additional caveats to fixed price listings:

• When you hide your fixed price listings, buyers won't see them in your eBay Store, search results, or cross-promotions. If a buyer added one of your items to their watch list and tries to purchase it while you're away, they'll see a note stating that you're on vacation and not processing orders. Here an example:

• All auction-style and other listings will continue to appear as they normally do.
• Buyers who have already purchased items will still be able to view them.

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Last thoughts

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Seller have reported some pro's and con's when putting your eBay store on vacation mode. The below video goes over some of the impact on turning vacation mode on.