I'm taking a week vacation in Jan and need to close down. What is the process?

[musicyouneed]

I'm going away for a week in Jan and need to close down for a few days before and the week I'm away.  

I've got the screen that I do that for, will it work for all my listing on .com and .ca?  I was just going to mark "keep buyer from buying"

Any words of advice/caution?

[recped]

You might want to add the date you will reopen and/or a custom message.

Speaking of dates, consider re-opening a few days before you actually return, you have a 3 day handling so if you were able to restart shipping on a Monday you could unhide your listings on the previous Thursday or Friday.

One other thing, set up the auto-responder for messages if you will not be able to access email while away.

[musicyouneed]

Thanks that was exactly the kind of information I was looking for.  

[momcqueen]

As above but also adjust your handling time to match the number of days you will be absent.

[ricarmic]

A caveat of the good kind to recpeds suggestion is that in my experience when I reopen after "hiding" the listings, there is a surge in sales for a couple days after reopening.

I mention this incase you don't want to be swarmed with orders to ship on your actual return date.....because the surge will have happened before you got back.... on the assumption there is one of course!

[pjcdn2005]

As above but also adjust your handling time to match the number of days you will be absent.

MJ - There is no need to do that when the listings are being hidden. Music is checking off 'keep people from purchasing your fixed price items...." which does hide everything but auctions. The wording has changed, it used to specify that listings were hidden.

[momcqueen]

Except we established the listings are not hidden from people who've already Watched them.

It was then confirmed by ebay that one should also set handling time to match the number of days away.

RoseDee and I did a big experiment with this about 18 months ago, and there was an entire thread devoted to it; we took the findings to Raphael and he confirmed at that time that adjusting handling time is your safest bet. 

[pjcdn2005]

That isn't quite what happened or what was discovered unless you are referring to another experiment that the two of you did. Yes buyers who have your items on a watch list can see your vacation hidden listings but they can't purchase them so there is no point to changing the handling time.  Raphael did say that they could be purchased (just before he left .ca) but he was wrong as that was fixed years ago. After he said that you and

rose-dee did an experiment and it did show that he was incorrect.

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/To-close-store-or-not/td-p/358370/page/3

Post 47 - Rose-dee went on holiday with her listings hidden on Friday. Today is Monday. I had agreed in advance to watch four of her items (two listed on ebay.com and two listed on ebay.ca) and try to buy them when I shouldn't.

This morning, I try. I can see the banner on her page. It says Add to Cart, it Says Buy It now. I check both on a desktop and mobile app while logged into ebay.ca. I am dismayed to see that it looks like they are available to sell but when I click Add to Cart or Buy it Now, I get a red error message that says they aren't available to me until the seller returns.

Conclusion, hiding your listings does prevent buyers form purchasing them. 

[pjcdn2005]

There was also talk about the statement in the help section about vacations saying that if a listing had ipr it could be purchased when hidden but as I said then, I believe that a .com rep said that was a mistake and it wasn't true. I know that I've never heard of it happening.

I've always hidden my listings when I've been away more than 3 days and have never had anyone make a purchase while I was gone.

[momcqueen]

Oh, yes. You're clearly correct. My mistake, apologies. 

I remember now that the reason that I always adjust my handling time to match the number of days I am away is because I never hide my listings when I put the store on vacation. I leave the listings visible with the notation that I am away and that my handling time indicates when the orders will be shipped.

Thank you for the correction. I must have misremembered the entire affair because I don't actual use the 'hide listings' feature.