We need your feedback on the holiday mode feature!
Hello Sellers, 👋
Another holiday season is approaching, and we want to open a discussion on a Quick Tip: Enable holiday mode.
Sellers in other stores shared with us feedback that when you go on holiday and activate holiday mode on your account, you currently have no way to communicate to your customers the date when you will be back in operation and it causes inconvenience for both you and your customers.
We would like to collect feedback from you, which will help us identify any necessary changes.
We want to hear from you on the following questions:
• How many times a year do you go on holiday and activate holiday mode on your account?
• What specific problems have you encountered in not being able to communicate the return date to your customers? Have there been complaints, loss of sales, or anything else?
• What alternative solutions would you suggest, in addition to the automatic message (e.g., notice on the store page, push notifications to customers, etc.)?
We would appreciate your insights!
Thank you,
Julia.
4 replies
Seller_ZJhFeE3tNKzfh
Other main issue is pending orders can still go through while in holiday mode. You I imagine would also see this issue with Subscribe and Save orders - though it is a personal choice to do subscribe and save - you can opt out and the arguement would be if you can't fulfill while you are away, then you don't do subscribe and save.
But you can't avoid pending orders - so its unfair to be penalised for pending orders moving to Ship while in holiday mode.
Surely the logical places to notify would be customers who have placed those pending orders - once the payment is confirmed to notify them the seller can't fulfill until X and if they wish, they can wait or cancel?
Seller_ZjZ4slOF0jHpk
The biggest issue I have is that it doesn't take account of Scottish holidays (and I would assume the same for the other non-England nations). Like 2nd Jan, August (start of the month unlike England's end of the month), September weekend, etc. On those dates, we cannot post - POs/RM are shut in most places. I get that it can get complicated (there's as many Scottish town holidays as there are weeks it sometimes seems!), but on some of those dates, we don't want to switch on holiday mode or extend handling times. We want actual recognition that certain dates are most definitely not working days here. At the very least - 2nd Jan would be a start.
This is compounded by the fact that a lot of people outside Scotland are either not aware of this or take this into account and expect you to ship when you can't. It's not, as far as I can tell, taken into account for the transit times. And since we cannot put anything about this on listings or profiles,...
Adding more dates and allowing us to opt in or out would solve most of it.
Seller_ZVAz3d5lZuGid
A definite advantage would be to be able to put the dates of our holiday as a banner or something when a customer goes to buy any of our items.....and yes, the pending issue is a real problem, meaning we need to activate holiday mode a few days before actually going away, obviously only an issue for FBM.
The other point to note is that it can take quite a while for all listings to become active again.
Seller_d8YGbIjNqwFxn
We tend to only have 2 weeks a year off, one in the summer and another at Christmas. Although we may work over this Christmas.
As others said the Pending Orders are the worst. If a pending order exists when we put holiday mode on then it should automatically cancel it. Alternatively if we could put a return date in then Amazon could set to be the order date we return.
Messages are still expected to be answered within 48 hours. We only check once a day for any new messages whilst on holiday so are responses are delayed (compared to when we are working). It would be good for the buyer to know when they send us a message that our response would be delayed.
I personally wouldn't want it advertised widely on Amazon that we are on holiday. I wouldn't want to see any banners etc saying 'Direct Gifts Ltd is away and will return on the 30th November'. I would want to protect my privacy to the fact I was away.
We need your feedback on the holiday mode feature!
Hello Sellers, 👋
Another holiday season is approaching, and we want to open a discussion on a Quick Tip: Enable holiday mode.
Sellers in other stores shared with us feedback that when you go on holiday and activate holiday mode on your account, you currently have no way to communicate to your customers the date when you will be back in operation and it causes inconvenience for both you and your customers.
We would like to collect feedback from you, which will help us identify any necessary changes.
We want to hear from you on the following questions:
• How many times a year do you go on holiday and activate holiday mode on your account?
• What specific problems have you encountered in not being able to communicate the return date to your customers? Have there been complaints, loss of sales, or anything else?
• What alternative solutions would you suggest, in addition to the automatic message (e.g., notice on the store page, push notifications to customers, etc.)?
We would appreciate your insights!
Thank you,
Julia.
We need your feedback on the holiday mode feature!
Hello Sellers, 👋
Another holiday season is approaching, and we want to open a discussion on a Quick Tip: Enable holiday mode.
Sellers in other stores shared with us feedback that when you go on holiday and activate holiday mode on your account, you currently have no way to communicate to your customers the date when you will be back in operation and it causes inconvenience for both you and your customers.
We would like to collect feedback from you, which will help us identify any necessary changes.
We want to hear from you on the following questions:
• How many times a year do you go on holiday and activate holiday mode on your account?
• What specific problems have you encountered in not being able to communicate the return date to your customers? Have there been complaints, loss of sales, or anything else?
• What alternative solutions would you suggest, in addition to the automatic message (e.g., notice on the store page, push notifications to customers, etc.)?
We would appreciate your insights!
Thank you,
Julia.
4 replies
4 replies
Seller_ZJhFeE3tNKzfh
Other main issue is pending orders can still go through while in holiday mode. You I imagine would also see this issue with Subscribe and Save orders - though it is a personal choice to do subscribe and save - you can opt out and the arguement would be if you can't fulfill while you are away, then you don't do subscribe and save.
But you can't avoid pending orders - so its unfair to be penalised for pending orders moving to Ship while in holiday mode.
Surely the logical places to notify would be customers who have placed those pending orders - once the payment is confirmed to notify them the seller can't fulfill until X and if they wish, they can wait or cancel?
Seller_ZjZ4slOF0jHpk
The biggest issue I have is that it doesn't take account of Scottish holidays (and I would assume the same for the other non-England nations). Like 2nd Jan, August (start of the month unlike England's end of the month), September weekend, etc. On those dates, we cannot post - POs/RM are shut in most places. I get that it can get complicated (there's as many Scottish town holidays as there are weeks it sometimes seems!), but on some of those dates, we don't want to switch on holiday mode or extend handling times. We want actual recognition that certain dates are most definitely not working days here. At the very least - 2nd Jan would be a start.
This is compounded by the fact that a lot of people outside Scotland are either not aware of this or take this into account and expect you to ship when you can't. It's not, as far as I can tell, taken into account for the transit times. And since we cannot put anything about this on listings or profiles,...
Adding more dates and allowing us to opt in or out would solve most of it.
Seller_ZVAz3d5lZuGid
A definite advantage would be to be able to put the dates of our holiday as a banner or something when a customer goes to buy any of our items.....and yes, the pending issue is a real problem, meaning we need to activate holiday mode a few days before actually going away, obviously only an issue for FBM.
The other point to note is that it can take quite a while for all listings to become active again.
Seller_d8YGbIjNqwFxn
We tend to only have 2 weeks a year off, one in the summer and another at Christmas. Although we may work over this Christmas.
As others said the Pending Orders are the worst. If a pending order exists when we put holiday mode on then it should automatically cancel it. Alternatively if we could put a return date in then Amazon could set to be the order date we return.
Messages are still expected to be answered within 48 hours. We only check once a day for any new messages whilst on holiday so are responses are delayed (compared to when we are working). It would be good for the buyer to know when they send us a message that our response would be delayed.
I personally wouldn't want it advertised widely on Amazon that we are on holiday. I wouldn't want to see any banners etc saying 'Direct Gifts Ltd is away and will return on the 30th November'. I would want to protect my privacy to the fact I was away.
Seller_ZJhFeE3tNKzfh
Other main issue is pending orders can still go through while in holiday mode. You I imagine would also see this issue with Subscribe and Save orders - though it is a personal choice to do subscribe and save - you can opt out and the arguement would be if you can't fulfill while you are away, then you don't do subscribe and save.
But you can't avoid pending orders - so its unfair to be penalised for pending orders moving to Ship while in holiday mode.
Surely the logical places to notify would be customers who have placed those pending orders - once the payment is confirmed to notify them the seller can't fulfill until X and if they wish, they can wait or cancel?
Seller_ZJhFeE3tNKzfh
Other main issue is pending orders can still go through while in holiday mode. You I imagine would also see this issue with Subscribe and Save orders - though it is a personal choice to do subscribe and save - you can opt out and the arguement would be if you can't fulfill while you are away, then you don't do subscribe and save.
But you can't avoid pending orders - so its unfair to be penalised for pending orders moving to Ship while in holiday mode.
Surely the logical places to notify would be customers who have placed those pending orders - once the payment is confirmed to notify them the seller can't fulfill until X and if they wish, they can wait or cancel?
Seller_ZjZ4slOF0jHpk
The biggest issue I have is that it doesn't take account of Scottish holidays (and I would assume the same for the other non-England nations). Like 2nd Jan, August (start of the month unlike England's end of the month), September weekend, etc. On those dates, we cannot post - POs/RM are shut in most places. I get that it can get complicated (there's as many Scottish town holidays as there are weeks it sometimes seems!), but on some of those dates, we don't want to switch on holiday mode or extend handling times. We want actual recognition that certain dates are most definitely not working days here. At the very least - 2nd Jan would be a start.
This is compounded by the fact that a lot of people outside Scotland are either not aware of this or take this into account and expect you to ship when you can't. It's not, as far as I can tell, taken into account for the transit times. And since we cannot put anything about this on listings or profiles,...
Adding more dates and allowing us to opt in or out would solve most of it.
Seller_ZjZ4slOF0jHpk
The biggest issue I have is that it doesn't take account of Scottish holidays (and I would assume the same for the other non-England nations). Like 2nd Jan, August (start of the month unlike England's end of the month), September weekend, etc. On those dates, we cannot post - POs/RM are shut in most places. I get that it can get complicated (there's as many Scottish town holidays as there are weeks it sometimes seems!), but on some of those dates, we don't want to switch on holiday mode or extend handling times. We want actual recognition that certain dates are most definitely not working days here. At the very least - 2nd Jan would be a start.
This is compounded by the fact that a lot of people outside Scotland are either not aware of this or take this into account and expect you to ship when you can't. It's not, as far as I can tell, taken into account for the transit times. And since we cannot put anything about this on listings or profiles,...
Adding more dates and allowing us to opt in or out would solve most of it.
Seller_ZVAz3d5lZuGid
A definite advantage would be to be able to put the dates of our holiday as a banner or something when a customer goes to buy any of our items.....and yes, the pending issue is a real problem, meaning we need to activate holiday mode a few days before actually going away, obviously only an issue for FBM.
The other point to note is that it can take quite a while for all listings to become active again.
Seller_ZVAz3d5lZuGid
A definite advantage would be to be able to put the dates of our holiday as a banner or something when a customer goes to buy any of our items.....and yes, the pending issue is a real problem, meaning we need to activate holiday mode a few days before actually going away, obviously only an issue for FBM.
The other point to note is that it can take quite a while for all listings to become active again.
Seller_d8YGbIjNqwFxn
We tend to only have 2 weeks a year off, one in the summer and another at Christmas. Although we may work over this Christmas.
As others said the Pending Orders are the worst. If a pending order exists when we put holiday mode on then it should automatically cancel it. Alternatively if we could put a return date in then Amazon could set to be the order date we return.
Messages are still expected to be answered within 48 hours. We only check once a day for any new messages whilst on holiday so are responses are delayed (compared to when we are working). It would be good for the buyer to know when they send us a message that our response would be delayed.
I personally wouldn't want it advertised widely on Amazon that we are on holiday. I wouldn't want to see any banners etc saying 'Direct Gifts Ltd is away and will return on the 30th November'. I would want to protect my privacy to the fact I was away.
Seller_d8YGbIjNqwFxn
We tend to only have 2 weeks a year off, one in the summer and another at Christmas. Although we may work over this Christmas.
As others said the Pending Orders are the worst. If a pending order exists when we put holiday mode on then it should automatically cancel it. Alternatively if we could put a return date in then Amazon could set to be the order date we return.
Messages are still expected to be answered within 48 hours. We only check once a day for any new messages whilst on holiday so are responses are delayed (compared to when we are working). It would be good for the buyer to know when they send us a message that our response would be delayed.
I personally wouldn't want it advertised widely on Amazon that we are on holiday. I wouldn't want to see any banners etc saying 'Direct Gifts Ltd is away and will return on the 30th November'. I would want to protect my privacy to the fact I was away.
