to close my store or not....

[downsizing2018]

Good morning,

I am looking for some ideas comments or advice please.

I have to close my store for 6 weeks, but I am worried about what the repercussions might be for my standings in eBay, as well as what hoops I might have to go through when I re-open.  Also if I were to end 3/4 of the item in my store - would they stay in the "unsold" file for 6 weeks?

For example the tentative plan is to keep only the postcards active.

Any feedback / advice would be appreciated.  thanx

[pjcdn2005]

Technically, they should show up in your unsold file for 90 days although I can't say that I have tested that.

It seems that new listings get a boost in search so if some of your items have been listed for a while, taking them down and relisting them in 6 weeks might give them that boost. But if you have gtc multiple item listings that have a lot of sales, those items are probably doing well in search now and might lose that extra visibility if they are ended and started again later on.

[pocomocomputing]

Listings that have ended (Sold or UnSold) stay on eBay for 90 days.  My eBay can only see 60 days. All other tools see listings for 90 days.  You can subscribe to free Selling Manager basic version if needed to see 90 days.

If you have a windows computer, consider installing eBay Turbo Lister which is free. Once you have this setup on your computer, you can import your listings to Turbo Lister Inventory.  This would be a backup on you computer in case somehow the listings disappear from UnSold online. Highly unlikely but you would have two ways of getting your listings. Turbo Lister is awkward and slow to loose with as many listings as you have currently in the store. Patience will be needed to download so many listings. The images will be downloaded also with the listings.

[pocomocomputing]

I checked one listing and see that you use Turbo Lister so you already know how to use it.

[pocomocomputing]

How do you pay for your store currently? Monthly or yearly? If you have yearly, then there may be high penalties to downgrade the store or close the store depending on how many months are left.

Also if you have GTC listings and end them, if any of the photos are under the 500 pixel minimum, they will need larger photos if you relist later from UnSold. Current active GTC listing are exempt from the 500 pixel minimum rule as long as they are not changed or ended.

[pocomocomputing]

As Colombo says in the old TV series, one more thing...

I see in some listings that you are using eBay Listing Designer. If you have a Premium store, then you get Selling Manager Pro which in turn has Listing Designer for free. Be careful if you downgrade store level to Basic as you may get charged for listing designer per listing at 10 to 30 cents each depending on listing duration.

If you choose to close your store completely, make sure that you have Selling Manger Pro subscribed to before listing anything so Listing Designer is free.

[gifts_of_elegance]

How about putting your store on "Vacation" and not showing any of your listings? That is what I always do.  Any comments or other suggestions from my fellow sellers?

[downsizing2018]

Poco you are amazing......

I have a yearly subscription to premium store, so have to pay regardless and can not down grade, so any sales in one category (postcards ) is better than none. 

I never considered the picture issue though, so will have to see - there was a tool that we could use about pix size...and I think I was alrite when I checked there.  Then again, a bit of housekeeping might be in order as well.

Turbo Lister - do you mean if I import the active listing, or "update"  which I rarely do, TB is a pig sometimes.

It would be good to have a back up -

I do not want to close the store, that is too long - I am going on a road trip, an postcards would be easy to maintain - what I am thinking.

[rose-dee]

I don't quite understand -- is there a particular reason you wouldn't want to use the Store Vacation settings? 

That feature is so much easier to turn on and off than actually ending listings.  If you choose the option to hide all listings, you won't have to worry about dealing with processing sales.  I do find it can take a few minutes for all the listings to re-load again when you toggle the vacation setting back to "off", but they all come back just as they were. 

I wasn't sure what the maximum allowable "vacation" length was, but I just tried setting mine on vacation until August 31st and didn't get any error message, so I assume 6 weeks isn't too long for that feature.

[downsizing2018]

I thought since I was away for extended period of time,  I would be able to mix business with a road trip, and make a few bucks as I go along, I can easily carry my inventory of cards with me and maintain the store since I still have be to pay that subscription anywaze.......

[rose-dee]

Hi again - yes, I see what you're saying.  I did this with my antique patterns when we drove across the country, but postcards are even more compact! 

It looks as if you have enough volume per month to sustain your TRS over that 6 week period.  Still, I'm always concerned that if I go away for more than a couple of weeks at a time I'll lose customers and visibility. 

You could perhaps combine the two ideas -- put your store on vacation for the first 2 or 3 weeks, then take the vacation off, and end all but the postcards for the remainder of the holiday (or vice versa, with the vacation settings at the end of your trip).  I'm not sure whether you can specify on "vacation settings" whether you want particular items to be visible and the rest not, but I don't think so.  Maybe that's an idea eBay could work on...

P.S.  I see you're in Nanaimo -- how far are you planning to travel?  6 weeks is a nice long trip!

[pocomocomputing]

Here is the tool to check your active listing to see if they meet the 500 pixel requirements.  It breaks down into GTC listings and other so you will know if you will have a problem with any GTC listings.

http://www.isdntek.com/ebaytools/ListingPhotoSizes.htm

Since you are away only six weeks (42 days), all of your ended listings would be in UnSold. So backing up to Turbo Lister would be an extra backup.  If you subscribed to Selling Manager Pro (free with a Premium store and SM Pro gives you Listing Designer free), you could also save your Active listings to SM Pro as a backup too. It would be faster than Turbo Lister.

As for putting a store on vacation, it is for all listings, you cannot select what to hide.

Ending some listings will have mixed benefits. 

The pros are that when you relist, you can possibly manipulate the search visibility to higher.  If you sell mainly one of a kind items that were listed as GTC, a fresh start would get rid of any possible low visibility from lack of sales (no sales history for OOAK items). So you should relist using Sell Similar for the OOAK GTC items. You might be pleasantly surprised with extra sales in the first few days if you relist this way as the items would be at the top of searches by buyers searching using Newly Listed as well as Best Match.

The cons are you might have some picture size issues (check with the tool). Also you will be starting all of the ended listings at the same time which will make a big bubble of items with the same 30 day cycle. You might want to spread out the relist over a few days so that they end over a week instead of a day. This way any search boost at the end of a duration cycle will be spread over a few days. This way if someone finds an item and looks at your store, you might get more looks at your store.

Maybe too much thinking but this is what I have read over the years as ways to manipulate search visibility to a sellers advantage. How true it is today with new Cassini search and all the free promos and other changes to eBay?

Good luck in sales from the postcards. Have fun on your trip!

PS I have been finding that any notes I put in Selling Manager basic on a listing disappears when going to Sold or UnSold. This has been happening of and on in the past and recently I lost a bunch of notes on Auctions that ended. I had them marked with a note to up my inventory by one for the fixed price listings that they came from so I could keep my inventory count correct. Lost all the notes when they went UnSold. Note feature in Selling Manager sucks. Not reliable at all.

[gifts_of_elegance]

I have tried the "end all" before.  I was gone almost seven weeks.  I then relisted everything as "Similar".  It was an awful lot of work.  I did 35 listings a day so that it would be spread out over a month.  Every day, it took me good two to three hours and I was beat at the end.  Any prioritizing I might have gained, I lost with the 30 day delay.  

[pocomocomputing]

Using bulk edit on UnSold should only take a few minutes to relist 35 listing each day as sold similar. You need to keep track of what was relisted to not miss anything or have duplicates and to delete the ones listed.

Why would it take any longer?

[pocomocomputing]

One other issue to check is the quantity. If a listing was originally a quantity of more than 1, when you relist it might not remember the sales and relist with a higher quantity than actual on hand. This is true for non GTC fixed price listings. I know GTC will remember sales when it auto relist each month but do not know what will happen when an ended GTC is relisted. Will it take the original amount when it was first listed or the active quantity when it was ended.

If it was an OOAK item GTC, it should not matter.

[gifts_of_elegance]

I don't use the bulk editor for several reasons.  First is because I list on both eBay.com and .ca and it does not go smooth.  Second is because some of my listings are in quantities and might have had a sale.  Third is because once it has expired, it looses lot of the specs and need to be filled in again.  But the main reason is, it gives me a chance to check the listing over, to see if I had any mistakes that has prevented them from being sold, to see if it needs a price adjustment and if the pictures need to be updated.  Of course, the fact that I am 68 years old has a lot to do with it too!

[gifts_of_elegance]

Now, I am not trying to use my age as an excuse.  As far as I am concerned, the fact that I know how to use a computer at my age is a plus.  The fact that I am still productive at my age makes me feel super good.  I have built a business that benefits my whole family.  My grandchildren look upon my office as a shrine, they are always camping here and want to keep everything I sell.