Did I love my mind or didn’t Amazon rollout a new vacation mode option where you could take orders while away, then fulfill them when you return (for short (10 or less-day) vacations)? I swear I read an announced new feature for this the last several months and vaguely remember some mention of it on here, but can’t for the life of me find it on either forum… crazy emoji
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Yes! That’s it. Thank you.
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It’s “Seller Set Holidays” (found in Shipping Settings) and seems to work exactly as it should.
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So far.
Nobody has tried to “maximize it’s efficiency” yet.
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I’m giving this a shot for the first time for Monday through to the following Sunday… everyone else’s feedback seems to indicate this works as intended. Hopefully that’s the case.
2 years ago we took a 2-week vacation and the dip in orders during that time caused our Account Health to dip below the extra support threshold (250) for the first time, and I literally just got it back above that line last week.
Fingers crossed.
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It worked perfectly for us.
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I wonder, if I have a order in pending from before the vacation time starts, and they buyer finalizes whatever held it up during the vacation period, will that order also be pushed till my return? I may have to pack the current ones with me just in case… then risk Amazon triggering some crap b/c it ships from a diff zip code than normal.
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It should be counted as a holiday order, but… Amazon so who knows.
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Normally … if you have 1 day handle time and you get an order on Monday, then the order goes out on Tuesday. If the order is in pending on Monday until Thursday, then the order goes out on Friday.
If you have a custom holiday set up for Tuesday thru the following Monday, and you get an order on Monday before the custom holiday Tuesday, then that order will go out the following Tuesday after the last day of the custom holiday Monday. If you have an order in pending the Monday before your custom holiday Tuesday and the order is released from pending on any day during your custom holiday Tuesday through following Monday, then the order will go out on the following Tuesday (your first day back). In fact … with a one day handle time, all of your orders during the custom holiday will need to be shipped the following Tuesday (your first day back).
If we were going to be gone Tuesday through Monday, we would set the custom holiday up for Tuesday through the following Tuesday so that we would have that last day of custom holiday to set up orders to go out on the next day Wednesday … thus protecting ourself from having any late shipments.
If you have a 2 day handle time, then (under the above custom holiday of Tuesday through following Monday) your orders would go out on Wednesday. You may not need to protect yourself by adding the one day to the custom holiday for processing.
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From what I understand from the time a mod answered a question similar to this, if an order is placed before you create the holiday, then the holiday will not figure in to the calculation. But if the holiday is set before the order is placed, then it will act as a normal holiday.
So assuming that is correct (granted, a big assumption), it would seem that you should create the holiday well in advance. I don’t think there is any harm to setting it even weeks prior to the dates.
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I’ve used it twice but only for one day off for Christmas and New Years days before or after (I don’t remember which side).
I’m in a ‘lazy’ phase and have my throttle set at 15 orders/day.
The first time worked perfectly and came back to 15 orders the first day back and some lagging into day 2.
The second one not so much. I ended up with 17 the first day and then some into day 2.
Amazon is nothing if not inconsistent!
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Little update after my 7-day vacation. This feature worked—God it feels weird to say this—perfectly. I wasn’t sure how it would handle items that came in the evening before my vacation formally started (it was set to begin on a Monday), but items that came in late Sunday that I couldn’t ship that evening were pushed till my return.
Even better, I had 2 orders that had been pending several days before I even created the personal “holiday”. I took the books with me in case the orders were completed and needed shipping. Both in fact did complete while I was away but both were pushed till my return for the designated ship date. Sweet.
The only downside I saw was a few cancellations after ordering (items that sat for a few days), and a few items added then removed from customers’ carts, which I attribute to seeing the projected ship date, as this doesn’t happen to me much otherwise.
This is the first time in at least 10 years I feel like Amazon has made an actual improvement, so I will hand it to them on that. With 15+ inches of snow forecast in my corner of VA this weekend I am setting up another holiday 
PS/Sidenote: I highly recommend visiting Charleston & Savannah in the winter, as we just did. Both real gems of the Eastern US and wayyyy less crowded this time of year with plenty going on.
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Most all of us here in South Cackalacky, and most all of those in the (“other”) Peach State, will probably be inclined to second your recommendation.
Come and see us.
Kick your shoes off.
Set a spell.
Y’all come back now, ya hear?
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We visit Savannah several times throughout the year and always enjoy ourselves, but especially enjoy the quieter times.
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Nisha and I had our honeymoon in Charleston after getting married right after Xmas. It was great, if a bit chilly. Not crowded at all, and still comfortable weather.’
We even got bumped to the front of the line at a restaurant when the hostess found out we were just married; it was a place that put plaques on all the tables of famous people who had sat there. We got the table used by Jimmy Buffett and Oliver North (what a combination!).
One warning; we went to the visitor center, and found a map of “Garden Walks”, which sounded great. But there, “Garden” means “Graveyard”. So on our honeymoon, we walked through 4 cemeteries!
Still gotta make it to Savannah.
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Ha, great story. We go out of our way to visit graveyards, so were all about it last week. Our teenagers are even into it somehow. We hit several b/t the 2 towns.
One weird thing that was a real surprise was the Graveface Museum in Savannah. First rate. The initial room of roadside oddities/carnival monsters was worth the admission alone.
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These were actually great; although we don’t normally do that unless it’s genealogy related. Rather interesting that the first was immaculate; almost like a military cemetery, except that there were various sizes of monuments. Next was not quite as neat; by the last one, there were weeds everywhere, headstones that were leaning or broken, and in some cases, trees had grown to start engulfing the stones. That last one was a blast!
Very cool, just not what we were expecting.
Maybe one of these days I’ll get my website back up and post some pics from there. (but don’t hold your breath!)
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