How to Take a Week Off From Your 3D Print Shop Without Closing It
Vacation Mode stops the orders. A hand-off keeps the best sellers shipping while you are gone — your own week, laid out three ways.
You can take a week off from a 3D print shop without closing it. Hand the listings that sell most to a production partner before you go, turn on automatic fulfilment, and stretch the processing time on the rest. The best sellers keep shipping while you are away, and you come back to a small queue instead of a closed shop or a mountain. In a shop taking 35 orders a week, where 70% come from listings we make, that is about 25 orders shipped in your absence and 10 waiting. Set your own week:
Listings we make keep selling and ship while you are away. The rest wait.
Sales that never happen
$0
0 orders
Waiting when you get back
10 orders
15 print-hours of backlog
Shipped while you were gone
25 orders
each within 3 business days, under your name
Why not just Vacation Mode
Vacation Mode stops the orders. It does not stop the shop’s costs.
In Etsy’s wordsWhile it is on, “your listings won’t be visible to people who view your shop” and “your items won’t appear in Search.”
What Vacation Mode actually does
- Your listings
- Hidden from Search and from your shop page. Your shop still appears for anyone searching its exact name, with a notice that you are taking a break.
- Open orders
- Still yours. Etsy says you must still fulfil sold orders and take part in any open cases while it is on.
- Fees
- Listings set to auto-renew keep being charged when they expire. Etsy Ads fees stop while it is on.
- Buyers
- Anyone who visits can sign up to be emailed when you are back, and messages get your auto-reply.
It is the right switch when you cannot run the shop at all. For a planned week away it gives up the sales you would have made. Etsy’s own advice for keeping orders open is to edit your processing times so they reflect the time you really need.
Set up the hand-off before you leave
01
Pick the listings
The five or ten that bring most of your orders. Upload their files and make each one a product in the colour and material you sell it in, with any magnets or inserts it needs.
02
Match the SKUs
Put each product’s SKU on its Etsy listing, and connect the shop through Shippo. That one code is how an order finds us.
03
Say so on the listing
Etsy requires a production partner to be disclosed on the listings it makes, with where they ship from. Your own original designs qualify.
04
Turn on automatic fulfilment
By default each order waits for your approval. Switch it to automatic and nothing waits for you while you are away.
05
Stretch the rest
For listings you still make yourself, add your days away to the processing time, and set a message auto-reply.
06
Place one test order
A week before you leave, buy one of your own listings. Watch it arrive, print and ship, and you will not think about it again.
While you are away
Each handed-over order is printed on our production printers, fitted and assembled if you asked, checked by a person, and packed with your shop’s name on the slip and nothing of ours inside. It ships within 3 business days with tracking back to Etsy, and if a print fails it is made again on our time. You pay the make cost of each order as it comes in; there is no monthly fee, so the hand-off costs nothing in the weeks you do not use it. Plenty of shops leave it switched on afterwards, which is how overflow usually starts.
FAQ
Yes. Instead of Vacation Mode, have a production partner make your best-selling listings while you are away and extend processing times on the rest. The shop stays open, the main listings keep shipping, and you return to a short queue.
Etsy hides them from Search and from your shop page and stops new orders. You still have to fulfil existing orders and handle open cases, and listings set to auto-renew keep being charged when they expire. Etsy Ads fees stop while it is on.
An afternoon for a handful of listings: upload the files, make the products, add the SKUs to your listings, connect your shop through Shippo and switch on automatic fulfilment. Do it a week early and place one test order.
Not if you turn on automatic fulfilment in Settings. Orders then go straight to printing without waiting for you.
Go. The best sellers keep shipping.
Match the listings you want us to make by SKU and turn on automatic fulfilment. Every order is printed, checked, fitted and assembled if you ask, and shipped under your name while you are away.
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