Journal

Going away without taking your work off the market

Published 23 September 2026 — Last updated 23 September 2026 — Selling your work

Every artist selling online hits the same week. A holiday, a fair, a residency, a hospital stay. The work is listed, you are not at home, and a sale you cannot post is worse than no sale at all.

The usual answer is to delist everything and put it back when you return. That works, and it costs you the week. Your pieces drop out of the marketplace, out of browsing, out of anyone’s search, and they start from nothing when they come back.

Veriroo now asks a better question: what do you want to happen while you are away?

Where to find it

On the web it is Sales and dispatch, in the account menu. In the app it is Account, then Orders, then the Sales tab. Either way the Going away panel sits at the top, above your orders.

You set a return date, either by picking one or by tapping in one month, three months or six months. One setting covers every piece you have listed, and you can change it at any time.

The three settings

• Hide my listings. The old way, made deliberate. No new sales can arrive, your listings drop out of the marketplace until your return date, and you lose that week of browsing. Sometimes that is exactly what you want, and the screen says plainly what it costs you.
• Keep them visible, show a longer dispatch time. Buyers keep finding your work, and every listing shows the longer wait before anyone pays a penny. Orders can arrive while you are away, and the dispatch clock starts on the day you are back.
• I am at a fair, taking work with me. The one that only matters if you sell in person. Everything you carry comes off the marketplace, so the piece hanging on your stand cannot also sell online to someone three hundred miles away while you are talking to a visitor.

Why the middle one is usually right

The argument for hiding everything is that it is safe. The argument against it is that a listing nobody can see sells nothing, and a marketplace forgets you quickly.

Telling a buyer the truth before they order costs you almost nothing. People buying an original painting are not expecting it the next morning. What they will not forgive is paying and then hearing that you are away for a fortnight.

That is the whole principle, and it is written at the top of the panel: tell buyers before they order, rather than after.

What it does not touch

If you sell prints through your shop, they carry on while you are away. A lab prints and posts those, not you, so there is nothing for the setting to protect you from.

Limited editions sold in person are a separate switch again, because a numbered edition can only be sold once and the number has to be reserved the moment it changes hands at a fair.