Pause items for 30 days, What if the strike goes beyond that?

[tuckhouse2021]

Due to the current postal strike I have had to put my store on pause. I have no alternatives for mailing other than Canada Post.

I am wondering what happens if the stike goes longer than my pause end date?

I don't see an option for extending past the 30 days.

Do I have to let everything come back online for sale and then start another pause?

What happens if I get a sale in the process as I am unable to mail? Will I get defects and have to make cancellations?

I am not at that point yet but will need to make a plan and am wondering what other sellers without mailing options are planning. 

Perhaps Ebay can make the pause period longer to accomodate but how do I go about that?

Thanks in advance for your input.

[dobo5250]

you make very valid points --i too am getting screwed by this strike -- as items that cost 22 dollars to send to far location c.p) which most of sales are  now are $33 /35 ups canpar fedex-- i have over 500 dollars of prepaid canada post mailings -- that i cannot use -- and that  ties up my funds ---  i can not go a month if this strike goes that long i will out of business as my costs have gotten to large for me to handle without  profitable income losing that much of a sale  due to my giving free shipping -- now that will have to stop --- so  much turmoil so much headaches -- going out drinking this afternoon to forget this mess  with the few dollars i have  left on my credit card 

good luck hope someone has good news hear to share -- all cannot be doom and gloom can it ??

[byto253]

At day 29 or so, take the time away off and immediately put it back on.  There will be about a 30 minute exposure window that a sale could take place.  

I do this for extended time away of 2 to 3 months. 

The other option is to end all listings, but when you relist them it uses you free listing allocation - which may be fine depending on the number of listings.

[recped]

The strike will not last more than 30 days, I'm confident in my prediction and I've been aroun d for a lot of postal strikes. If the Union doesn't cave in the next two weeks they will get legislated back to work (even with a minority government).

In the unlikely situation that is does go past 30 days it's pretty simple to turn off Tine Away and then turn it back on, You might have a short period (perhaps as much as one hour) where you listings might be visible so do it in the middle of the night.

I'm not 100% sure but I suspect that when turning off Time Away it will require a re-index of your listings so they might not be available in search during that 1 hour.

[ricarmic]

I agree with @recped that the reindexing prevents folks from buying for the 30 mins to an hour it takes for the store to "re-time away".

Each summer I've usually closed my store for July and August so I've done the stop and restart ever since things were changed to have a 30 day limit.

In years gone past I did have the odd repeat buyer purchase something during the time between reopening and reclosing the store, but the last couple times this has NOT happened, so that leads me to believe the reindexing theory is correct and has prevented purchases during the "re-time away".

This change has coincided with the change that in days gone past when I reopened the store there used to be a surge of purchases, but for some time now, reopening the store seems to do nothing to create a burst of reopening sales like it once did. I think its timing is consistent with the fact that people haven't been purchasing during the "re-time away" anymore either.

[recped]

Another alternative it to turn on the Out Of Stock option, bulk change all listings to quiantity = zero.

These listings will renew 5 times and then be ended on the 6th time, that's a least 151 days. Even when ended eBay puts them in your unsold for another 90 days (but you lose the lkisting history/watchers)

When you return simply bulk edit back to 1 available or whatever is the correct quantity, if you do multi-item listings (you'll need to keep a record so you can restore the correct quantities).

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

How many listings do you have?

Pause/vacation is only useful for two situations:

1. You have a massive amount of inventory. Thousands of listings.
2. You have multi-quantity listings that have accrued a very high amount of sales and watchers (dozens? hundreds?), and you don't want to lose the high 'Best Match' the listing has earned placement by starting over. 

If you have under 200 listings, I would just end them and do sell-similar rather than rely on vacation mode. 

[fergua3]

i doubt the strike will last 30 days as well.  The main reason being that the union employees are probably getting a bit antsy.  They've lost over a week's pay already.  With Christmas looming they will want to be making extra pay by working extra hours, not making nothing while standing in the cold. 

If not legislated back to work (i doubt the Conservatives will support but maybe the Bloc would?) i could see the union suspending the strike action until after Christmas.  They will say it is to help Canadians at Christmas but it will really be to prevent a revolt among union members.

And note:  It may not be a simple matter to legislate the workers back.   Parlaiment has been in gridlock for 2 months now over a squabble about redacted documents.  Nothing can be passed.   So unless the Minister does the same thing he did to end the dock strikes, CUPW will not be forced back to work.

[tuckhouse2021]

Thanks, I have over 6,000 listings and more waiting to go as soon as the strike ends. I will have to do the end pause and then quickly restart for another 30 days, go from there and hope for the best.

I was worried that I would loose some listings during such a quick change over but perhaps it doesn't work like that.

I can end the pause when the strike ends and then re-shuffle all my scheduled listings to coincide.

I don't seem to have any options other than another pause, hope and patience.

Thanks for the help.

[byto253]

It is a bit more than redacted documents. The House passed an order for documents to be released to Parliament’s law clerk, which is a fundamental right of Parliament.  The response ranged from absolute refusal to partial disclosure, which is in defiance of the authority of Parliament.  The Speaker confirmed that the documents were to be released and ruled against the government when they were not.

No political comment on who is right or wrong here, just wanted to point out it is a pretty fundamental point under dispute.   I would have hoped that there was a way to get things moving by now.

[fergua3]

ah.....thanks for the clarification.     There's even a bit more to it than you described as i listened to it in depth several days ago but have forgotten a lot of it.... but the bottom line is Parlaiment is in gridlock and it will be very difficult to pass legislation to order the postal workers back to work.   

It is going to take special measures from the NDP to even pass the new GST tax relief/250 cheque thingy, which i thought all parties would be in support of.    No way the NDP will help passing a bill to order striking workers back to work.