Overview

Every Amazon seller needs a break eventually, but stepping away without configuring your account properly can lead to missed orders, late shipments, and serious damage to your performance record. Amazon offers built-in holiday settings in Seller Central that let you temporarily pause seller-fulfilled listings or customize your operating schedule around public holidays, keeping your metrics intact while you recharge.

What Holiday Mode Does

• Hides seller-fulfilled listings — Your self-fulfilled products are temporarily removed from search results and product detail pages, preventing new orders from coming in while you are away
• FBA listings stay active — Fulfillment by Amazon inventory continues to be sold and shipped normally, so only your merchant-fulfilled catalog is affected
• Date-based activation — You specify exact start and end dates for the pause, giving you full control over the duration of your absence
• Found in Listing Status and Settings — The toggle is located within Seller Central's account settings area

This distinction between seller-fulfilled and FBA listings is important for sellers running a hybrid fulfillment model. If Amazon handles part of your catalog through FBA, those products will keep generating sales even while holiday mode is active on your merchant-fulfilled items.

Customizing Public Holiday Settings

Not every seller takes public holidays off, and Amazon accounts for this with a holiday override feature. If you plan to keep fulfilling orders on dates Amazon has designated as public holidays, you can mark those specific days as operating days through the Holiday Settings page in Seller Central.

This adjustment tells Amazon's system that you will be available to process and ship orders on those dates, and your delivery promises update accordingly. Sellers who operate during holidays may see increased visibility and sales since fewer competing seller-fulfilled offers are typically active. However, you should only mark a day as an operating day if you are genuinely prepared to fulfill orders. Failing to ship on a day you designated as operational carries the same metric penalties as any other late shipment.