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.
16 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_8pu1BcITpOjUp
I have used holiday mode a few times but I would rather extend the lead times for FBM listings so that I can still get sales but I cannot find an easy way to do this (on Etsy this is very easy to do). Notification to customers that the lead time is longer than normal would be great if it was a feature to extend products times. I feel that this time sales have dropped since I turned my holiday mode off but this also coincided with Amazon handmade top 100 lists being removed and only the top 100 handmade products list now showing only (used to be top 100 handmade cards, top 100 handmade mugs etc etc) don't know for sure
holiday really should be holiday but with holiday mode you still have to answer queries and pending orders can be an issue
Seller_tRuvBEHDedp4q
I agree with what others have said - especially pending orders.
The easiest solution on pending orders is just not allow them full stop - if customer buys something and payment cannot be taken from card immediately, then Amazon should just inform customer straight away so they can rectify it. This is EXACTLY what happens on every other site when I goto pay - if my card is not accepted then the order does not go through. Pending orders can also mess up stock control - for example I only have 1 left and during the Pending period I sell the item from my own website. Then it clears pending on Amazon and I have no stock.
On eBay I can set start and end date and time I am going be away and can choose whether to not accept orders during that period or accept orders but customer is informed about the delay for delivery (and obviously shipping time is automatically extended too). I can see no reason why something similar cannot be employed by Amazon. If Amazon had this capability then ad-hoc extra holidays (like those in Scotland raised by NBPhotography) wouldnt need be programmed into Amazon as sellers could just set the start and end dates for these holidays as appropriate.
As already pointed out allowing pending orders and not having the capability to accept orders when away hurts Amazon coffers as well - sellers have to put on holiday mode several days before they actually need to and obviously the item is completely withdrawn from sale during the holiday period.
Lastly - when I sold internationally, Amazon would disregard the national UK holidays on the foreign sites. For example, in France Boxing Day is not a national holiday. Lets say a customer bought an item on Xmas Eve. On Amazon UK Amazon would calculate shipment day as the 27th automatically. However, if I also listed on the FR site - and even though Amazon knows I am a UK seller - Amazon would expect me to ship on the 26th Boxing Day which is just impossible. Then I would get a hit on my metrics for not shipping on time.
Seller_AVteysPitiEJq
I echo the pending orders situation and I would like to see some sort of out of office style message system built into the holiday settings with a Q&A option so we don't get unnecessary messages whilst we're taking a little break.
Apart from that, I find it works well for us. Nice and easy to switch on and off
Seller_iZL0ysZFrLJmN
Apart from the pending orders mentioned by others, the other issue is that we still have to reply to customer enquiries whilst in holiday mode.
All other 3rd party sites, provide an option for a script that we can write to explain that any query won't be answered until the shop is back open. It would then respond to the customer's enquiry with the script we have written to explain when they will receive a response to their enquiry. This is especially difficult from small businesses who don't have anyone else. (for example, I am in Handmade as as a sole trader).
I had a holiday and was in the Borneo jungle and had to get the lodge to allow me access to their internet for 10 minutes each day, just to check my Amazon messages! This was NOT an easy task to gain access to intermittent internet in the middle of the jungle and certainly didn't enhance my holiday.....
Seller_n4Hrja1TGw0qT
Pending orders are an issue
Should be able to continue to sell but show you are on holiday until a certain date instead of having to turn off listings completely
Answering messages within 24 hours or being penalised is an outdated system and should be reviewed.
Seller_40ozsHlGqPuEL
Hi Julia,
Thank you for reaching out and opening this discussion. Here are my thoughts and suggestions regarding the holiday mode feature:
Frequency of Holiday Mode Activation: I typically activate holiday mode twice a year, once during the summer and once during the winter holidays.
Communication Challenges: Not being able to communicate the return date to customers has led to some confusion and complaints. Customers often expect immediate responses and shipments, and the lack of clear communication about our return date can result in dissatisfaction and potential loss of sales.
Alternative Solutions:
Notice on Store Page: Adding a banner or notice on the store page indicating the holiday period and expected return date would be very helpful. This way, customers are informed upfront about any delays.
Push Notifications: Implementing push notifications to inform customers about the holiday period and return date could also be beneficial.
Out-of-Office Message: An automated out-of-office message system that responds to customer inquiries with information about the holiday period and expected response time would be useful. This would help manage customer expectations and reduce the number of inquiries during the holiday period.
I hope these suggestions are helpful. Thank you for considering our feedback!
