Away Message

[LoveandPrint]

Hi! I am going out of the country and will not have access to my etsy shop while I'm gone. I want to leave all my instant downloads active while gone, but was wondering if there was a way to set an away message up to automatically go out to conversations without putting my shop into vacation mode. I'll be gone for over 2 weeks. I have already updated my shop information with this info as well. Thank You!

[WilliamsGiftshop]

Unfortunately, you can only have an automated conversations reply message if you put your shop in vacation mode.

[Former_Member]

So what's your advise for this situation?

[Former_Member]

So what's your advise for this situation?

[WilliamsGiftshop]

What the OP wants is not possible.

The only thing I can think of is adjusting the send out dates of your orders and adding the info about when the orders will ship in the message to buyers that you can add to Etsy's sales confirmation e-mail.

What I would do, to avoid unsatisfied customers, is put my shop in vacation mode.

[OneFairfaxRoad]

Lada, I don't put my shop in vacation mode when I travel on buying trips. I tried it once and I lost a lot of momentum and views. Like you did, I add a note to my shop announcement stating that I'm out of the country on a buying trip and that all orders will ship on (date).

I also add in my automatic order reply the following:
"Thank you so much for your order from OneFairfaxRoad! In case you missed my shop announcement, I'm out of the country on a buying trip and all orders will ship on my return on (date). Thank you so much for understanding."

I have not had a single issue with this approach. Best of luck to you!

[WilliamsGiftshop]

Yes, the message to buyer is very important because, frankly, almost none of our customers read our shop announcements. Usually they find an item they like and never even end up on our shop pages.
But be warned that not all customers will be amused to hear of the delay in shipping AFTER they made their purchase.
Even if you stated it in all the obvious places (most customers don't read, not even that message to buyer).
I used to ship within 1 business day. So my customers would not be happy if I suddenly informed them it would take 2 weeks to ship their order.

[StuckOnSilver]

Make sure the customer can cancel the transaction if she or he is dismayed that delivery will be delayed. I don't use vacation mode either. Good luck!

[RainbowBeeDesign]

Good information, thank you!

[WilliamsGiftshop]

Yes, that's a great tip, Bev!
That way you probably won't end up with unhappy customers.

[fishcouple]

I am also pondering on this issue. I didn't need to put my shop in vacation mode last year and the year before because I didn't get as many orders and my vacation was only for 2 weeks. I only needed to cancel 2 orders because the clients didn't see my shop announcement.

However, I will be gone for a month this summer and my shop is actually doing much better than the past. Although many clients would order way early like more than a month, I am still very much concerned that I might get many rush orders that I needed to cancel most of them. I am inclined to put my shop in vacation mode but on the other hand, I don't want to see my shop lost the momentum like OneFairfaxRoad mentioned ....

Tough decision ...