Etsy Tuesday Tips: Vacation Mode

Hello, and welcome! Today's Tuesday Tips are all about vacation mode.

And this is close to my heart because I currently have my Etsy shop on vacation...

When started my Etsy shop I read a lot about other sellers' experiences with vacation mode and most people say that it's very difficult to recover your sales after being closed, even for s short period of time. 

So there and then I decided I would never put my shop on vacation mode - not even when I was actually on vacation with my family. What I did was extend shipping deadlines and put a message out for buyers saying I was not at home and their items would be shipping on day X (after my return). I never had any issues with it, so I thought this grand scheme of things would work well forever. 

Then came the pandemic. At the beginning I also extended shipping times. But then we were put on lockdown, my company sent me to work from home and the kids started online classes. Going out to the post office became harder. Finally, most post offices (including the one closest to us) were closed or worked on a very reduced schedule. 

So I caved in and put the shop on vacation. And three months later, it's still there. I'm just now planning the return to the office, but the kids are still at home (no summer camp this year) and I have no idea how we will manage that over the next few weeks. Then I will be officially on vacation for three weeks in late August/early September - though what that will mean this year, other than more time at home, I'm not exactly sure. 

So I'm hoping to open the shop back in September. It will be like a fresh start. I hope I don't have to wait too long to build up sales again, but I'll wait and see. I made it once, I'm sure I'll make it again. 

And while I can't give you any tips on the re-opening after vacation mode, I do have one important advice for when you go on vacation mode, especially if you're not sure when you'll be re-opening again: make sure your items are not on auto-renew. While on vacation mode you will still have views and favorites, but you will obviously have no sales - so you don't want to pay any fees either. And Etsy will still charge you the renewal fees if you're on auto-renew. So change all your items to manual renew. Even if they expire while you're on vacation mode, you can easily renew them once you re-open.

And this is what I have for today. Don't forget to check the other Tuesday Tips posts from this fantastic group:

Happy Tuesday!