What to do when leaving for a long period of time?

[frank_card]

Hello,

Im going to be deploid in the middle east for  6-7 months and i just want to make sure im doing things right and also have a couple concerns. So from what i gathered all i can do for my store is;

- Hide all my listings and put the option that noone can buy them.

- Add my approximate away time in the time away option.

Anything else i have to do? 

Concerns:

-will my seller lever go down or worst will ebay close my account for inactivity?

-Any other negative effect that i should be concerned about? or will i just get back home in 6 months and be able to continue where i left off?

Thx in advance for the help 😉

[ricarmic]

As I understand the new "time away" the longest duration for closure is 30 days.

It appears one can momentarily reopen the store on day 29 and then close for another 30 days. I personally haven't done this yet so I do not know for sure if that works. It also bears a slight risk that someone might purchase in the meantime.

It would be interesting to know if one can cheat and move from hidden status to just the message that one is away and then back to hidden status again.

You are going to have to continue to pay your store etc fees, as long as you are doing that they won't close your store, no reason for them to and you're store is theoretically still active.

It might be worth your time to call in to the support staff to ask if there are other options for a longer term closure aside from ending all listings and closing the store (there are penalties if you selected the annual rate). 

[pjcdn2005]

You can only put your listings on time away for 30 days.  I'm not sure if it is possible to reset them before the end of the 30 days or if you have to end time away and then start it again.

If you have any listing options on your listings, you will be charged for those every month.

I have no idea if ebay will even allow listings to be on time away month after month.

Personally, if I were to stop selling for that long, I would copy and paste the info from my listings in my own files, save the pictures and take the listings down. 

[richardcm]

I am currently using Time Away feature since June 25, 2021. I have ended Time Away with  a couple of days to go the redid Time Away to start immediately and run for 30 days again. Redid it again last night to go until mid September.  When ending i had to wait a few minutes between end and start for the change. I do not know if i can just end and restart immediately without the wait. I had less than 50 active listings. 

I did this on my selling id not this id.

[esclyons]

it looks like you don't have a store.. so that changes things..  you may just want to end your listings are re start when you get back..

[reallynicestamps]

Ended items go to your Unsold list but will be purged after 60 to 90 days (I've seen, and experienced both).

My suggestion is that you back up your pictures by filing them in a desktop file and your descriptions the same.

I have similar files going back to 2005-- but I might have a 'digital hoarder' problem.

However, I find when I have a new copy of a book or postage lot, I can pull most of the information from my desktop files which makes new listings much faster - perhaps five minutes each instead of 20 if I have to make scans and code in descriptions.

Pricing and shipping still need hands-on attention.

[recped]

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@esclyons wrote:

it looks like you don't have a store.. so that changes things..  you may just want to end your listings are re start when you get back..

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Store or no Store doesn't matter anymore, Time Away (formerly Vacation Setting) or OOS are available to all sellers. Non-Store sellers get 250 free listings per month so enough to cover the OP's listings.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@frank_card wrote:

Hello,

Im going to be deploid in the middle east for  6-7 months and i just want to make sure im doing things right and also have a couple concerns. So from what i gathered all i can do for my store is;

- Hide all my listings and put the option that noone can buy them.

- Add my approximate away time in the time away option.

Anything else i have to do? 

Concerns:

-will my seller lever go down or worst will ebay close my account for inactivity?

-Any other negative effect that i should be concerned about? or will i just get back home in 6 months and be able to continue where i left off?

Thx in advance for the help 😉

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As per the other posts eBay only holds your listings for 90 days in unsold. They can sometimes get corrupted due to systems upgrades. If you feel it is worth the expense there are other 3rd party sites like inkfrog etal where you could potentially "hold" your listings for an extended time period for your return.

If you did have a store there are either 12 subscriptions with slightly reduced fees or month to month. With a subscription there are fees for cancelling early.

-Lotz

[mr.special-editions]

If he's military, I would assume eBay has a solution or at least grant a work around allowing him extended time away and also pausing payments if he has a store.

[richardcm]

Another option I read here in these forums or the USA forums was to use eBid which is another free auction site but based in the UK. It has an import function for eBay listings importing photos and listings. I don’t know about item specifics or shipping.

Another way is to use eBay file exchange which is implemented under seller hub in reports I think. Best to go to USA forum called Seller Tools to discuss the file exchange option. eBay member shipscript, a legend helping eBay members is an expert on file exchange. She often makes custom exports and imports to fix listings. Usually same day. If she worked for eBay she would fix up their site in weeks alone.

[richardcm]

I forget to mention that file exchange does not store photos. Only links to photos. So you need to store your photos online somewhere. Not a good long term option.

[recped]

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@mr.special-editions wrote:

If he's military, I would assume eBay has a solution or at least grant a work around allowing him extended time away and also pausing payments if he has a store.

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Being in the military doesn't get you any special favours nor should it. the OP is "allowed" to take all the time off from eBay they want to just like any eBay seller that has something more important to do.

Besides, the OP has less than 200 listings most with one line descriptions, recreating them if need be when they return is not a very onerous task.

[femmefan1946]

@mr.special-editions 

If he's military, I would assume eBay has a solution...

Aw. Bless your heart.

@richardcm

Or Bonanza-- easy to import your listings-- and you are almost guaranteed to have no sales whatsoever.

[femmefan1946]

If he's military, I would assume eBay has a solution...

Aw. Bless your heart.

@richardcm

Or Bonanza-- easy to import your listings-- and you are almost guaranteed to have no sales whatsoever.

[mr.special-editions]

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@recped wrote:

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@mr.special-editions wrote:

If he's military, I would assume eBay has a solution or at least grant a work around allowing him extended time away and also pausing payments if he has a store.

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Being in the military doesn't get you any special favours nor should it. the OP is "allowed" to take all the time off from eBay they want to just like any eBay seller that has something more important to do.

Besides, the OP has less than 200 listings most with one line descriptions, recreating them if need be when they return is not a very onerous task.

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I respect your opinion but I disagree.  I have been granted exceptions for lesser reasons by contacting eBay and politely presenting my concern. 

If you know how to talk to people, you present yourself well and have some common sense, it's very easy to come to a solution that works for both parties. 

[ypdc_dennis]

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@recped wrote:

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Store or no Store doesn't matter anymore, Time Away (formerly Vacation Setting) or OOS are available to all sellers. Non-Store sellers get 250 free listings per month so enough to cover the OP's listings.

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Non-store get 200 free insertions per month on ebay.CA

250 free is for those in Managed Payments on ebay.COM  (or 200 if not in MP) -- the extra 50 is paid for by a 0.2% higher selling fee.

Or 450 (400) free if you list on both sites.

[recped]

Right 200.......

And another or....eBay has been giving me 100k free (plus the regular 200) for the past year and I'm really not sure why! I know I'm not the only one but I'm not sure how widespread that promo is.