Ability to set holidays

Hoddie

It's possible on Ebay to set when you're on holiday, and any customers attempting to 'buy it now' or bid on an item are advised that the seller is either soon to go away on holiday or actually is on holiday until xxxx and so there'll be a delay. Buyers can thus decide whether to proceed and wait or look elsewhere.

I wonder if this functionality could be added here? All we can do at the moment is post a message on our store's home page and/or close the store. Neither of these options are great though because not every customer visits the store's home page, and closing the store when someone might have an active cart or actually be in the middle of filling their cart is just bad customer service. As is leaving the store open but leaving orders unfulfilled until your return.

My preferred option would be that we're able to set a short message that appears as a banner across every page, that way you can advise customers a few days earlier that you'll be going away (you could also make short promotional announcements like "free shipping on orders above £x.xx"). At the very least I think we need the ability to be able to set a message that customers are shown at checkout, informing them we're away until xxx date. It could just be a standard message and all we provide are the start and end dates.

Up to now I've been adding short messages to the shipping profiles but this is a cumbersome way of doing it.

I don't know if this is easily achieved or not but I hope it's possible.

Lawrence

You can set the dispatch time of your store to 6 to 14 days, this will remove it from the catalogue, but still allow people to place orders. The dispatch time stated in your store should always be accurate, and should not be overridden by putting messages elsewhere.

Hoddie

That's true, I hadn't considered that. I do think it's easily missed though, especially by repeat customers who will be used to a different turnaround speed and will probably not think to check.

Markyd7

Not sure how well customers notice the dispatch time.
Have mine set to 2-5, but usually post same day - 2. Was away recently for a couple of days so didn't change it. Sent a message to every order saying it would be 3 days before posting. The first customer was disappointed at it taking so long and he would have picked faster postage if he'd realised it was going to take so long.
All the rest were fine with it.
I think as a customer I'd like to know if it was going to be 5 days rather than 2.

Maybe a few more timing options would help? 4-7?
Just been away for a week so closed the store for a few days and then opened it a few days before coming home.
Having a 6-9 would be a better setting than 6-14.

budgetkids

I agree, most don't see the dispatch times. I think during checkout and selecting the shipping method if it would say "expected ship date 8/9/15 Unless shipping method dictates otherwise" depending on the stores dispatch times.

I have a expedited processing method, this is why I would add the "unless method dictates otherwise".

Just my 2 cents,
Chris

lotsofbricks

I am also in favor of having a vacation setting.

Ems Bricks

+1 I dont think the small print about dispatch time is visible enough. Particularly if you have regular customers whom I doubt read the storefront page every single time they place an order. I tend to close the store, but then there may be buyers who are prepared to wait for their order to be shipped. in which case I've missed out on their orders.

robernat

Agreed...
I'm currently on a break and 'active carts' have nearly dropped to zero... Dunno whether that is entirely due to being closed (but I assume it is) or due to buyers 'clearing' their cart (I consider that less likely as the amount of drops is too high IMHO). I would prefer to keep my store open ( with a regular login to confirm I'm still alive -matter of speak-) , let my buyers have active carts, and allow them to check out, if they don't mind the pressetted 'return to being fully active'setting... Right now, being closed, even for a couple of days, seems to cause a serious drop in upcomming orders... petty, I think with the better cart function as we have now here (compared to BL), it could (should) give better opportunities imo, both for sellers and buyers. This could be limited to the more regular sellers, or the ones with a certain amount of transactions to avoid abuse...

my 2 cents...

Lawrence

If you set your despatch time to 6-14 days, it removes your store from the catalog, and the despatch time is highlighted in red.

Hoddie

I don't believe that stands out sufficiently though I think a compromise might suffice. When a store has their despatch time set at 6-14 days, can this be flagged up as a reasonably prominent warning as the customer begins to checkout. Because the store disappears from the catalogue, this is only really going to affect people who have already begun to fill a cart, and perhaps repeat customers who bypass the main catalogue and head to a store they know they like. Perhaps affiliate sales also?

Something simple like:

"The store owner has indicated that orders will currently take between 6-14 days to despatch. This may only be a temporary situation."

Ems Bricks

Setting the time to 6-14 days and being highlighted in red makes the assumption the seller has read the store front page and picked it up. I don't think my repeat buyers would visit the storefront each and every time. Personally, I have closed the store rather than delay the time - and will probably continue to do this unless there is a more prominent warning about the delay as Hoddie suggested. I have always created a blog note a week or so before I close to encourage active carts to check out, as I too have found they have all disappeared when I re-open :-(

Lawrence

I had forgotten about affiliates. When the dispatch time is set to 6 to 14 days, a store will no longer show up on the API that is used by our affiliates. To clear up a few further pieces of information, the despatch time is shown on every page, not just on the store homepage. The active carts metric only considers a cart active, if it has been modified in the last seven days, so this will of course go down if you close your store, because not many people will be creating or editing carts if your store is closed. Carts themselves aren't actually wiped out for something like six months.

I actually prefer that stores close their store when they go on holiday, but the dispatch time of 6-14 days is intended as an alternative to give stores more choice. I do not have any intentions to create a separate holiday mode setting as I feel the current system is sufficient.

Hoddie

It makes zero sense from a customer service perspective. A customer is happily spending time adding items to a cart, perhaps they've been at it for hours cross-checking an instruction book, spreadsheet, or Rebrickable parts list, then all of a sudden the store shuts and they can't check out. It's like filling your trolley in Tesco and without notice all the lights go out and all the staff go home.

Lawrence

I like your analogy, I guess a holiday mode would let the person still walk around filling their trolley with the lights on, run it through the checkout, but leave the goods behind and come back in two weeks to pick them up.

Hoddie

The way I initially described it, we'd be able to give the equivalent of a tannoy announcement advising the store is closing in 10 mins.

minithingsforlife

I think a holiday mode is a great idea. Just keep the store open as usual but change all the places where it quotes delivery days, to say that the customer is on holiday and will return on a certain day. Then make one big notice on the checkout.

Lawrence

@Hoddie That makes sense, I will add it to the list

Hoddie

Cheers.