Invisible message is affecting my star seller response rate.

[DBStudioAU]

Hello, as a new seller, I have been working very hard on providing an excellent customer experience.

My stat's all look good except for my message response rate.

I have few messages that count because I typically reach out and say thank you on receiving an order so the customer is not normally the first message in a thread.

I do have one genuine message within 24 hours and one that doesn't seem to exist. 

Immediately after my first sale, I received 3 messages in my inbox from etsy help and etsy support all asking for my card details and bank verification. I marked these as spam but only 2 appear in the spam folder. The third is missing and seems to be the 1 message > 24 hours. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

[BagmakerSupply]

@DBStudioAU: "The third is missing and seems to be the 1 message ..." An unanswered new thread which has been sent to spam should not be included in your Star Seller calculations whether they appear in the spam folder or not. Have you checked the applicable CSV file available on your Star Seller page to confirm which new Message threads Etsy thinks were unanswered or answered late?

When you look at the file remember that that the dates / times are in UTC (not your time zone), only the first message of a new incoming thread is included (all that counts for Star Seller), and usually a new incoming thread is not included until after the 24 hour reply window has passed regardless of when you replied. Star Seller stats (and the CSV file) seem to be updated only once per day so there may be an additional day's delay. There is also a link to the actual message thread so you can verify if the data is correct or not.