How do I temporarily close my store?

[phoenixhobbies]

Hi their,

long story short, I have plans in the near future, that I will have to temporarily close my store/make my items not live, for a year and a half.

How do I do that, so I can make all my current listed items stay in my eBay inventory but not be live. Then, go live again a year and a half later, without them being removed and having to upload hundreds of listings again?

Thank you for your time and help.

[mandicrafts]

The only thing I can think of is to get an Inkfrog subscription. It keeps your listings forever but costs $27 USD per month. 
You can't do it on eBay that I know of except by ending and relisting every 60 to 90 days or to put your store on vacation/time away every 30 days.
And to be off eBay for that long, you may face being a "new" seller again and have selling restrictions.

[mrdutch1001]

I do not have a store on eBay but as a longtime seller I can't believe the situation would be any different for a store owner...if there are no listings  to show a seller as being "active", the end result would be the same. Seller not listing means a seller is not active. An inactive seller pays the consequences for that action. Sellers taking any great length of time off from having active listings will be faced with a tough go of it when they return to being an active seller again.

eBay sellers who take a hiatus from eBay will indeed be treated as new seller(no "may" about it) and have all the restrictions of a new seller. I am speaking from experience on that. To make a long story short and just say that I dragged my feet for not signing up for MP...did not list anything for 6 months= now treated as a new seller, and when you do return to selling, you start out with a limit of 10 item listings...

I did beg/plead my case as a longtime seller in good standing and eventually succeeded in getting my listings increased but still nowhere near the amount of listings I was eligible for, prior to taking the time off from listing.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@phoenixhobbies wrote:

Hi their,

long story short, I have plans in the near future, that I will have to temporarily close my store/make my items not live, for a year and a half.

How do I do that, so I can make all my current listed items stay in my eBay inventory but not be live. Then, go live again a year and a half later, without them being removed and having to upload hundreds of listings again?

Thank you for your time and help.

---

In your attempt to keep your listings live by re-newing them ever 3 months they would technically be invisible to buyers but would still have the side affect of having monthly cost from ebay because they are still considered GTC and renewing each month. Either per listing or price based on your store costs. This could be very substantial for 18 months.

Another option, if you were open to it would be to have someone else in charge/responsible  of your inventory during that time period, if you could work out a suitable arrangement. Might be less painful in the longrun. 

-Lotz

[recped]

Someone mention Inkfrog, that would work.

I would also suggest SixBit who have a low end version which I think is $20/month

BUT (it's good news)

You could sign up for SixBit, download all your current listings to save them. Then cancel your subscription until such time as you are returning to active status, resubscribe to SixBit and upload your listings back to eBay. (you can do this with SixBit because all the data is stored locally on your computer). The low end version of SixBit was specifically intended as a replacement for TurboLister and works in a similar fashion.

Total cost would be about US$40, all your listings would be saved and could be reupped to eBay with just a couple of clicks. There would b no need to maintain and pay for your eBay Store sub during your away time.

There is no way at all to save them on eBay for an absence of that length.

https://www.sixbitsoftware.com/clients/aff.php?aff=242

[phoenixhobbies]

Update: I do not mind the consequences of stopping my sales as a seller. I just don't want the pain of coming back having a massive amount of work of re-uploading hundreds of listings. 

[msmaggie060]

WonderLister is even cheaper. Only $15.00 for 3 months for the basic plan which will probably do what you want. I’ve been using it since TurboLister ended with no problems.

[recped]

Yeah for the basic versions of Wonderlister and SixBit are very similar, either would take care of the OP's requirements.

There is one other free option and that would be to download using File Exchange, steep learning curve for that especially if eBay makes any site changes which could happen given the OP want to "set and forget" for 18 months.

[reallynicestamps]

As a total technodolt, my system would be quite different.

First I would close all my listings. They will go to my Unsold List, but would be easy to reopen.

I would note on my calendar every two months that it was time to update my eBay account.

Then I would, late at night, reopen all my listings for one hour , and then close them all again.

That should keep them all on my Unsold List for another 60 days or so.

Since you have a Store, you could put them all on Time Away, making sure that the listings are also invisible to buyers (an option not the default, strangely).

However, I am not convinced that Time Away would extend for the time you want to close up.

One thought.

When you re-open your listings, DON'T do them all at once.

Open a few every day for a month.

Not only is this less work, but it will mean that you have "new" listings constantly, keeping your Store a titch higher in Search.

[phoenixhobbies]

Thank you all for your help. So, it seems my best and easiest option would be, to end all listings, then after, around the 55 day mark before the ended listings delete, relist all, then immediately end again, and repeat until I can sell again.

[dinomitesales]

I would just bulk edit all the listings and change the price to like $10,000 each, or some equally ridiculous price that ensures no one would ever buy the item lol.