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Vacation Mode: Custom Offers?


sydneymorgan

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I am glad you asked this, @sydneymorgan. I have been wondering about the new “Out of the Office” 💼 mode. (aka “Vacation Mode” 🌴 )

My experience is that it affected my sales ⬇️ . March was my best month even though I was in vacation mode for the whole last week of it. Then April was very slow, and now things are picking up again.

When I was in vacation mode, I still got messages from my repeat buyers, and I did make custom offers to them.

I also know that when you are in Out of the Office mode, new buyers cannot contact you.

It seems that my regular buyers could still contact me through the message system. So I still had to have my phone app or computer on to answer those messages. I am wondering,

Is there a way to not get messages in the inbox, so you can really be on vacation?

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I’m going on a trip at the end of this month and I’m considering using vacation mode for the first time ever.

  1. Does it affect sales (as far as personal experience of those who have used it)?
  2. Does it stop custom offers from being accepted?

Thanks!

  • Does it affect sales (as far as personal experience of those who have used it)?
  • Does it stop custom offers from being accepted?

As far as affecting sales, my experience is that it depends on how long you have it on. I can turn on VM for a day or two and if regular buyers keep buying from me when I get back, it seems to trigger the gig’s return to usual rank and normal sales. A week seems to bump it out of search long enough to do a bit more harm and some of my regular buyers are slower to return if I’m gone that long. Two weeks on VM is enough to usually affect my sales for at least the 2-4 week period following my return. I haven’t tested anything longer than 2 weeks.

If you have custom orders out there that have never been accepted and haven’t been withdrawn, buyers can still buy them while you are on VM.

Anyone who has contacted you in the past can still message you too. That seems to affect response time which makes sense, but since those are usually continuations of past messages, it doesn’t seem to affect your stats. There might be an exception if someone contacts you after months or a year, but so far I have not been affected as long as I had responded to the person’s first message within 24 hours. That holds true for me even if they last messaged me weeks ago.

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I am glad you asked this, @sydneymorgan. I have been wondering about the new “Out of the Office” 💼 mode. (aka “Vacation Mode” 🌴 )

My experience is that it affected my sales ⬇️ . March was my best month even though I was in vacation mode for the whole last week of it. Then April was very slow, and now things are picking up again.

When I was in vacation mode, I still got messages from my repeat buyers, and I did make custom offers to them.

I also know that when you are in Out of the Office mode, new buyers cannot contact you.

It seems that my regular buyers could still contact me through the message system. So I still had to have my phone app or computer on to answer those messages. I am wondering,

Is there a way to not get messages in the inbox, so you can really be on vacation?

Is there a way to not get messages in the inbox, so you can really be on vacation?

I hope they add that feature in the future. I plan to still be answering messages during this “vacation” but I will be away from an internet connection all together on a trip I’m taking later this year. I wouldn’t want repeat buyers thinking I may be ignoring them.

As far as affecting sales, my experience is that it depends on how long you have it on. I can turn on VM for a day or two and if regular buyers keep buying from me when I get back, it seems to trigger the gig’s return to usual rank and normal sales.

That’s very helpful information. I’ve kind of noticed the same thing (during normal times) when the number of new buyers dips, a few orders from repeat buyers brings things back up again. I think it’s a combination of the ranking algorithm and how many “orders in queue” buyers see.

Thank you both!

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  • Does it affect sales (as far as personal experience of those who have used it)?
  • Does it stop custom offers from being accepted?

As far as affecting sales, my experience is that it depends on how long you have it on. I can turn on VM for a day or two and if regular buyers keep buying from me when I get back, it seems to trigger the gig’s return to usual rank and normal sales. A week seems to bump it out of search long enough to do a bit more harm and some of my regular buyers are slower to return if I’m gone that long. Two weeks on VM is enough to usually affect my sales for at least the 2-4 week period following my return. I haven’t tested anything longer than 2 weeks.

If you have custom orders out there that have never been accepted and haven’t been withdrawn, buyers can still buy them while you are on VM.

Anyone who has contacted you in the past can still message you too. That seems to affect response time which makes sense, but since those are usually continuations of past messages, it doesn’t seem to affect your stats. There might be an exception if someone contacts you after months or a year, but so far I have not been affected as long as I had responded to the person’s first message within 24 hours. That holds true for me even if they last messaged me weeks ago.

If you have custom orders out there that have never been accepted and haven’t been withdrawn, buyers can still buy them while you are on VM.

I assume this is valid for custom offers sent to buyer requests as well? That would be very unfortunate since we can neither withdraw those nor set an expiry date for them.

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Remember too that there is now an additional option on “Out of Office” mode (the new name for vacation mode) where you won’t accept gigs, but you can still be contacted by new buyer s- not sure how that affects placement.

For me, I go on vacation mode for weeks (sometimes months) at a time due to overbooking. When I come off of VM, the pipeline fills up quickly again, often with new sellers - But, that might be because all my gigs are specialist Pro gigs, so get good placing in search results.

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I’m going on a trip at the end of this month and I’m considering using vacation mode for the first time ever.

  1. Does it affect sales (as far as personal experience of those who have used it)?
  2. Does it stop custom offers from being accepted?

Thanks!

Does it affect sales (as far as personal experience of those who have used it)?

I use the vacation mode nearly 10 days/months and I have never noticed something bad on my sales when I come back. I always receive orders the first or second day after my vacation.

Does it stop custom offers from being accepted?

I know that when you pause a gig the buyer can’t accept a custom offer. So, I think that it’s the same for the vacation mode but I am not 100% sure.

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Does it affect sales (as far as personal experience of those who have used it)?

I have used VM in the past and never had an issue with it. I usually get orders fairly quickly. Last year I was gone for a month and everything was back to normal almost instantly.

Does it stop custom offers from being accepted?

I am currently in VM and a client accepted a custom offer. So the answer is no ;).

Is there a way to not get messages in the inbox, so you can really be on vacation?

Yes, the new “Out of the office” feature gives you the choice of

A. Allow potential clients to contact you (response rate will be taken into account)

B. No don’t allow messages to come through at all

I think it’s pretty neat since you can even add a customized note on your profile for clients to read.

@sydneymorgan Enjoy your trip and have fun. 🏝️

I am currently in VM and a client accepted a custom offer. So the answer is no ;).

I appreciate the clarification. I do know from experience that pausing the gig a custom offer is associated with will stop it from going through. I might consider doing that, but I know paused gigs can take a little while to recover their ranking.


Thanks everyone! Really helpful information. 😊

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