How to Temporarily Close Your Etsy Shop

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With holiday shopping in full swing, I hope your small Silhouette or Cricut small business is busy shipping orders out the door. Several readers have asked me about closing their businesses the last two or three weeks of the year to take a break and spend time with their own friends and families.

When is a Good Cutoff Date?

I know that some sellers have already closed shop for the year, and many more are closing this week. This is a personal preference, and you certainly do not have to close down your shop during the holidays. If you do decide to shut down shop for a few weeks, don’t feel bad. Sanity and family is often more important than money!

How to Temporarily Close Your Etsy Shop

You have three options to closing your Etsy Shop:

• Deactivate your current listings. To deactivate your listings, go to Listings then Listing Manager within your Etsy admin area. When you are ready to reactivate your listings, you’ll reactivate them within the Listing Manager. As long as your listings do not expire while they are deactivated, you will not have to pay to reactivate them. Additionally, I usually change my shop header and profile picture to reflect that I’m temporarily closed and will reopen on XYZ date.
• Place your shop on vacation mode. You can place your Etsy shop in true vacation mode by going to Shop Settings, Options, then the vacation mode tab. This will allow you to enter a temporary Shop Announcement and an autoresponder to reply to incoming messages. To reopen your shop, visit the same page to reopen it.
• Leave your shop open and adjust your shipping time to a future date. If you will have access to answer Etsy conversations, you can adjust your shipping times to reflect the date when you will return to your shop. It is also a good idea to update your shop header and profile picture to reflect that you are closed until XYZ date. Consider even giving potential customers a coupon code in exchange for their patience. This method allows you to continue getting orders.

Will Closing My Etsy Shop Hurt My Listings?

In previous years, your listings would take a big hit if you put your shop into vacation mode and it would sometimes take many months for them to move back to a higher position. Etsy has made some updates, and this appears to be better than it used to be – although I’ve still seen a lot of problems. Be sure to take into account that your listings may drop in rankings if you close.

Before you go: Don’t forget that tomorrow is the last day to ship using USPS Standard Post for your buyer to receive in time for Christmas. Get the rest of the shipping deadlines with my USPS Shipping Deadline printable.

If you have some time before your next vacation and need to close your shop – head to this post.