Turning listings back on ?

soolin

I know a few of us have turned our listings off for this last Christmas week- but when are sellers generally considering turning them back on again?

I am considering turning mine back on in the early hours of the 24th, allowing a short while for the search engines to pick them up should mean if there are any buyers out there they won't be buying until well into the 24th. I'm also considering puting a 3 day dispatch on to give me breathing room over the 4 days the PO and RM are not operating.

What are others doing? I do like mine open on Christmas day and Boxing day as I often get some impulse buyers who are bored with watching TV and end up on ebay by default.

hiccup123

I've actually left all my listings running and added to them saying I will be posting out after the holidays. Changed dispatch from 1 day to 10. Someone purchased something last night so I dropped them a quick note saying I was posting after the holidays and they were completely fine with it.

I may change the dispatch to 3 days on Christmas day

kalsha

hiccup123 wrote: »

Changed dispatch from 1 day to 10. Someone purchased something last night so I dropped them a quick note saying I was posting after the holidays and they were completely fine with it.

I may change the dispatch to 3 days on Christmas day

Brilliant idea. I thought I would do the same as I had a sale last night so have to post today. I went to change my despatch time to 10 days but the maximum is for 3 days on my BIN listings. Is it different for private sellers?

hiccup123

i'm a private seller. I had option of 10 days and I think there were another 2 or 3 options even longer

charlies_mum

Holiday settings on for the moment. Will probably turn them back on late on Christmas Eve and just hope noone thinks I can get anything there for Christmas :rotfl:

forgotmyname

Yep, pop your listings back on the 24th as i need some last minute items for xmas day

soolin

:naughty

forgotmyname wrote: »

Yep, pop your listings back on the 24th as i need some last minute items for xmas day

The fear is- that some buyers might not be joking!

absolutereturn

It all depends on whether you are away for the holidays, if you're home and are able to post, why turn them off? The dispatch times are working days, if someone places an order on Christmas Eve they should know it won't be dispatched till next Tuesday.:xmastree:

I left mine on, however, sales have dried up completely after the weekend, which is just what I was expecting.

charlies_mum

absolutereturn wrote: »

It all depends on whether you are away for the holidays, if you're home and are able to post, why turn them off? The dispatch times are working days, if someone places an order on Christmas Eve they should know it won't be dispatched till next Tuesday.:xmastree:

I left mine on, however, sales have dried up completely after the weekend, which is just what I was expecting.

The problem is that some buyers don't always look at estimated delivery dates and will place an order convinced that you can override all the Royal Mail delivery estimates and get their item there within 24 hours !

soolin

absolutereturn wrote: »

It all depends on whether you are away for the holidays, if you're home and are able to post, why turn them off? The dispatch times are working days, if someone places an order on Christmas Eve they should know it won't be dispatched till next Tuesday.:xmastree:

I left mine on, however, sales have dried up completely after the weekend, which is just what I was expecting.

Buyers don't always read the delivery estimates, they buy something for Christmas and expect it to arrive. I show 1 day dispatch 2nd class and even though in at least half of my sales I send the same day I still have 6 'lates' recorded on my dashboard. Even printing off labels from ebay I sometimes get 'this service does not meet buyers delivery expectation' . Why I am having these issues and others are not I don't know.

Interestingly though on the power seller forum huge numbers of sellers have turned their listings off, yet on the community boards the private sellers appear to have risked continuing to sell. Perhaps buyers expect more from a business seller than for a private one?

absolutereturn

soolin wrote: »

Buyers don't always read the delivery estimates, they buy something for Christmas and expect it to arrive. I show 1 day dispatch 2nd class and even though in at least half of my sales I send the same day I still have 6 'lates' recorded on my dashboard. Even printing off labels from ebay I sometimes get 'this service does not meet buyers delivery expectation' . Why I am having these issues and others are not I don't know.

I added the 1st Class option at an extra cost and last week buyers were using it, clearly to ensure pre-Christmas delivery. The message you mention is auto-generated by the system taking into account the dispatch time from the listing, the postage method and the time when you are buying the label. As with anything computer-generated, it's not 100% accurate. On most listings I put 2 working days to be on the safe side even when most of the time it was same day or day after I sent the stuff. I only started listing with next working day as Christmas was approaching because I thought it could make a difference as I was selling some seasonal stuff.

soolin wrote: »

Interestingly though on the power seller forum huge numbers of sellers have turned their listings off, yet on the community boards the private sellers appear to have risked continuing to sell. Perhaps buyers expect more from a business seller than for a private one?

Yes, one would expect a business to send out things quickly because that's what they do on a daily basis but that's not the only reason to turn off listings. Businesses rely on employees and other suppliers who may be having time off. Also businesses would have a higher volume of sales and thus more potential for complaints and disputes than individuals listing just a few items.