Just curious - when there's going to be nobody around for a fortnight to fulfil online orders, what do you do?

Do you replace the ADD TO CART buttons with a small holiday notice?
Or just mention it on the homepage?

For those who have designed carts for other people... do you how they announce it (if at all?)

I was asking this very same thing at the end of December before I went away for 3 weeks.

It would be really nice to have the disable store option modified so that you had:

- Disable catalogue
- Disable checkout

Then you could leave the store up so customers could still browse, and simply post a message to the store home page to the effect that orders are suspended temporarily.

The solution I eventually took was to accept orders, but added in some text on the homepage and checkout pages to the effect that orders would be received and payment accepted, but not processed for dispatch until a particular date - Worked well for me.

Yes that method would probably work best. As long as people are aware before they order then you've done your best.

Over christmas, I had put up a notice in my store and a reminder in the cart that we were closed but taking orders. I clearly stated that we would not reopen until Jan 3 and that shipment was delayed until then.

I still got quite a few orders and am not sorry that I did not disable checkout. Why give my competitors a leg up?