Star Seller - Rant

[worldcoincufflinks]

Firstly Happy New Year.

Just want to off load here, we are a star seller since September, we received a 4 star review which was product feedback even though the comment was ' The recipient love it' and because of one 4/5 star feedback we lose our star seller for the month of January. All metrics were 100% up to that point.

There has to be something wrong with the Star Seller when its that tight, even Amazon are not that bad !!!!!

It hard enough to be a seller without this SH*T and I know the option is to reach out to the seller and talk with them or possibly offer a full refund or see if they will remove or update it but it seems very underhanded.

Does anyone else out there fell the Star Seller is a bag is Sh*T ?????

Sorry for the bad language, off loading having checked by ETSY app for message every days for the past 150 days etc !!! In case I miss the 24 hour reply deadline.

Talk to me people ? 10 year seller on ETSY....

[Former_Member]

I think the majority of people in the forum would agree with you, but there's really nothing to be done about it.  It is what it is and it's a waste of energy getting upset about it.

[TheBodyWorkout]

I dropped out too, but I'm having my best December and January since I've been on the platform. A Facebook group with 34,000 followers posted one of my products. If I get it back in the Star Seller program in February so be it, but I'm not going to care that much really.

[JimmyDsWoodShopArt]

I need to find someone to post a few of my designs on the facebook :<)

My shop has just under 1000 sales and I've only had 69 reviews that were all 5 stars.

Today I got a 2star review from a customer that states...

"Not the designer's fault. I just couldn't get it together. I need to practice"

What do you do with that?

[treasuredcharms]

Yes, 11 years here and 60.000+ sales and just made star seller this month for the first time in my main shop.  But I'm barely hanging onto 95% in reviews because of a handful of glowing 4-star reviews. 

My smaller shop didn't qualify for star-seller AGAIN and has 100% in shipping and reviews, but 90% in message response rate all because in October I waited until Monday to respond to a message sent Saturday night, and then I didn't respond to a question sent at 1am on Thanksgiving until Friday morning.  It was sent after I sent to bed Wednesday night, I traveled all day on Thanskgiving (Thursday) and got home exhausted.  Woke up Friday morning and worked all day and night, responded to my messages right away but I'm still dinged.  So I turned on my auto-response which counts and now I can completely ignore any message I want (not that I would but some are). 

As a customer I would much rather wait until the next business day to get a real human response than receive an auto-response that doesn't get a follow-up.  And that is what is happening ... I recently sent two shops questions and got their auto-response and never a follow-up.  But it counts as great customer service and is rewarded, while I am punished even though my quality of service is better.  What a joke. 

[Fusselfreies]

I just recently found out that automated replies (can be set for up to 5 days) count as replies as well.

[4wheeldreams]

I 100% agree with you.  I've put off ranting about this Star Seller rating for quite awhile or it would have just been 4 letter words - LOL.

I ship all my orders within 12 hours, some within a couple of hours and of course, 24 hours if they arrive on the weekend or a day when the p.o. is closed - AND YET I only have 95% rating on shipping.

I answer messages all within at least 24 hours...one I answered within 4 minutes and only 95% on that.

 I've gotten all 5 star ratings and it's 95% on that.

GMAFB! Whose idea was this non human rating anyway? I am over it. 

Okay, off my soapbox!

[GlassyFields]

i think it would have been more accurate to call it the 'we bought Etsy shipping labels' program.

[CatsBeadKitsandMore]

@GlassyFields , I've always used etsy shipping labels because it's convenient. Before etsy offered shipping labels I used paypal. If you don't like etsy SL then use paypal, pirate ship, etc. This has nothing to do with where you buy labels but with using tracking. 

[MiaPatrino]

I don't think it's right to deduct percentages because of a 4-star review. Or at least a minimum % should be deducted - for example 0,5 or 1.
Some time ago there was a topic that some buyers can not leave a 5-star review of their phones for some reason and therefore leave 4 stars.
So I think it's fair to deduct percentages only for 1, 2 or 3 star reviews.

[anythinggoeshere]

Watering down the metrics makes it less important to achieve.  It has rigid and high standards as it should be for a STAR seller badge.  Anything else is sort of okay, almost a star, but not quite.  

A 5 star star rating is for an experience and product a buyer loved, more than a 4 for "liked".

[TheBraMakery]

The reason the metric is only 95% is to allow for the fact that sometimes buyers leave 4 stars. Really they'd prefer you to have 100%

Etsy is a platform that leans heavily towards buyers automatically leaving 5 stars for everything.

[carvnstitch]

We had 100% but because we had a slow few months and a customer left a 4 star because she would rather leave a 4 star than contact us to try to let us fix the problem, we dropped out of all 100% to a 92%, poof.  The buyer waited until almost the last day to leave a review, also.  I got really upset at first and then my husband said that getting so upset is not worth it, but to top it all off, the 4 star stayed at the top of our reviews for days even though we got other 5 stars. The other 5 stars brought us up to 93%.  I am just going to do what we do.  Life is too short to worry about a purple star.  We have been doing this for a long time and I have had anything upset me so much.

[theprincessandpea]

I lost it too! my response rate dropped to 94%. I asked a seller question about their order and they responded ...there was no need to say any more.  I only noticed the next day that their response was a separate response and not tied to the question I sent.   

[enchantedbeas]

It happened to me! The same way! And I don't understand why I carried on to the next month even a lower % rate despite the fact that I did not have any more conversations. 95% to 87% to 67%. All the other scores are 100%. What would be the explanation??

[CircaDesign]

Same thing happened to me. Customer and I had many conversations on same thread. Then she replied on a new thread twice. These were the Thanks and Ok type of messages. Needless to say, I dropped to 88%. This is a crock. 

not to mention the customers who like something, say it is great and only give 4 stars. Asking why, am told they never give 5 stars. Well, great.

Stupid program. Try to ignore it, but it still annoys me.

[anythinggoeshere]

Next time send an emoji or Thanks.  Then you are good to go.

[ThePurplePuppy]

I always--ALWAYS respond to  these  "outlier" messages with "You're welcome" as that pretty much covers everything--even a "thanks"!

(I should probably make a snippet!)

[KidzStitchDesigns]

This has happened to me as well as spam messages and my auto messages isn't working 

[anythinggoeshere]

It doesn’t mean much if the metrics are easy to reach, does it?   I think this is intentional on Etsy’s part.  Why create a program called STAR seller unless it takes effort , overcoming obstacles, struggles, perseverance, disappointments to achieve it.  Maybe we have become too accustomed to participation awards.

[lulubugjewelry]

When ONE four star review can knock you out of the rating, I call bullsh*t on the entire program. Especially given the fact that they know older versions of the app will not allow 5 star reviews. This is on Etsy, do not blame the buyers who have not updated the app.

[NoFrogsAllowed]

However, there are things beyond our control.  If no one has a question for 3 months (doesn't that mean your listings answer the questions - a good thing), you were screwed, but they did finally change this.  If no one leaves a review for 3 months same thing.  (Don't know if they changed this too, because I've gotten reviews lately.)  $300 in sales???  I get plenty of sales, but I have to sell over 30 of my highest priced item to even come close and that will never happen.  I can't get the star no matter what I do.

For some of us it's not a matter of it being an easy or difficult goal to reach, but a matter of it being an impossible goal that is totally beyond our control. 

[2numerous]

@anythinggoeshere 
A bit dramatic. Yes?

"Why create a program called STAR seller unless it takes effort , overcoming obstacles, struggles, perseverance, disappointments to achieve it. "

As far as I can tell, the obstacles amount to a poorly planned program with wonky, inaccurate data. Struggles for Etsy Customer Service being unable to fix the wonky, inaccurate data. Shop owners perseverance  in reaching Customer Service to point out the wonky, inaccurate data. And disappointment  in the errors not being addressed.

This month there are shops  commenting they did not qualify for the star, but received it anyway. The inaccuracy is off the charts.

I would hate to calculate the time wasted on this Star Seller Program. Both on the planning programming prior to the introduction of it. The Customer Service waste, when the time could have been spent on true customer service issues during the holiday rush. The amount of time and angst shop owners have spent on something that has no true value. It's a bit sickening. 

Encouraging shop owners to contact shoppers who have left 4 star reviews is the antithesis of providing good customer service.

[Jewels2at]

Didn't someone say if a buyer leaves a review on their phone there are only 4 stars in the app...not 5?

[GieseDeseiGns]

I think heard it is,  if they don't have an updated app it can do this, yes.