Putting Your Shop On Vacation...

[ItsyBitsyPaperCuts]

How much search relevancy would I loose if I put my shop on vacation for a few days? Like would I bounce back to normal sales pretty quick?

[Bgenius15]

Hello Kristen,

In my opinion that was my biggest mistake to put it on vacation after December 15th, i used to have 10 to 15 sales a day or even 20, after i put it back on, around December 28th, i never had the same views or sales, don't know if everything was because of Christmas, but it went down badly.

But, its just my opinion, if you can keep up with the demand, i would leave it the way it is.

[ItsyBitsyPaperCuts]

Unfortunately I cannot keep up with demand. I used to get 10-12 sales a day and kept up but since January 1st, it has doubled. I have 123 open orders right now and they keep flowing in. I am worried I won't be able to continue this too much longer without doing something like a temporary vacation mode.

[NauticallyInspired]

I have put my shop on vacation mode a few time and I have never noticed a difference. Another option would be to raise your prices or deactivate the popular listings until you are able to catch up.

[Former_Member]

What a wonderful problem to have!

Have you considered raising your prices? You may want to consider doing that first.

I heard on a podcast (I think Etsy Convos) that it's better to just adjust your shipping time. For example, update your listing to say orders typically ship within... whatever. Then, update your shipping time on your shipping profiles.

Your shop is adorable, by the way.

[ItsyBitsyPaperCuts]

Thanks ladies. I don't feel 100% comfortable raising prices because to be honest, my products are made with cardstock and I would feel like I was taking advantage of people charging them too much. I have adjusted my processing time to 7-10 business days so hopefully this helps. So far all it's done is caused more emails of people asking if they can pay a rush fee to get it quicker. It is an awesome problem to have but I just can't keep up.

[HoneyThistle]

Hi Kristen,

I have put my shop on vacation mode twice before (once just this past christmas and once in 2014), and have never found any long-term search relevancy issues. With so many orders open, I think it is definitely an option!

Considering you sell party/occasion supplies, a lot of the purchases are probably time-sensitive... so increasing the turnaround time might only increase your problems later on down the line when customers are impatient with getting their orders or have not paid attention to the turnaround time when they checked out.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do, and take care of your health! (that seems to be the first thing I chuck out the window when I get busy unfortunately...)

[JewelMeShop]

Maybe you could expand proccessing time and state this in your announcement. I did that once without putting shop on vacation. I changed shipping time to 3 weeks and put it on shop announcement and message to buyers after their purchase.
Most buyers didn't have problem. There was only one lady who didn't pay attention on proccessing time and wanted her item faster. We agreed to cancel her order.

[LeedsRadio]

"cardstock and I would feel like I was taking advantage of people charging them too much"

Never say things like that.
There's a parable about a lady with a hat. She thinks its look is starting to get old so she brings it to a milliner. He carefully inspects it and then takes a piece of ribbon a expertly twists and turns and ties it into a beautiful new addition to the women's hat. She is thrilled and exclaims "It perfect! How much do I owe you?" The milliner says "Ten dollars." To which the woman says "Ten, dollars for a little piece of ribbon?" The milliner pulls the ribbon out of the hat, undoing his work, and hands it to the woman and says "The ribbon is free."

It's not the material that sets the price. It's what you do with the material.

[StuckOnSilver]

Well said, Richard.

Kristen, put your shop on vacation because you can't meet the fabrication and shipping demands right now.

Then, raise your prices and extend your processing time until you hit an equilibrium with sales, fabrication and shipping.

[FourDirectionsLight]

Richard, that is a very encouraging parable. Our time, effort and artistic abilities do need to count for something. It is hard for me to remember that.

[mirrymirry]

Hi kristen, i've had a lot of periods where my shop has been closed due to ongoing rotten health.

My last closure was for 10 months, & i came back in late September i think & sold a number of items within the first week .....for me going on 'vacation' doesn't seem to affect my visibility here on etsy. I hope it's the same for you :)

[fishcouple]

I'd like to share some of my thoughts here...

When I first started, I felt charging a dollar a cupcake topper was too much. Not until I worked on my orders that I realized how time consuming there were. I raised at least 2 times on my Airplane toppers, which need so many assembling efforts, not to mentions layers of cuttings and piece together. It always takes hours to finish just one order. I thought about discontinuing it but it sells once for a while, so I just keep it there for someone who appreciate my work. I know some sells at cheaper price, but I don't want to sell cheap.

I used to think it's only cardstock, but cardstocks are not cheap either. Now when I set the price, I always count my time too. I want it to be fair to myself so I have the motivation to keep creating nice items. :)

I felt good service will always bring customers back. People won't mind spending a couple of more bucks for a better service and products here on Etsy. I've got some real nice big orders from return customers this year, which made me really happy because I think they do appreciate my work. :)