Losing Star Seller budge because of bug issue

[MOOKbyMDS]

I had a star seller budge for awhile and lost it - system pointed out that one of orders didn't have tracking number and missing processing time. I checked the order and found there was no issue on the order. I bought a USPS shipping label through Etsy and shipped in time. So I decided to contact Etsy support. They told me that there was a bug issue and reported it to tech people to take a look. Since I lost the budge, I lost many customers, so asked them to change the status manually because I read other sellers commented here that they did it for them. Unfortunately they said they wouldn't.

I'm frustrated by this situation especially it was not my fault. My shop has been significantly affected by this and one of the support people from Etsy was very unhelpful and tried to manipulate the fact and could not help me to solve this issue.

I leaned that other sellers experienced the same and I wonder how they deal with this situation.

If Etsy can't mange this Star Seller budge system, they shouldn't do that because their system errors affect many shops.

[TheHomespunLoft]

@MOOKbyMDS 

Sorry about your star. 2 things. Once Etsy fixes the problem you should get your star back and why on earth would you think you lost customers because of a silly purple star that no one but Etsy cares about?? Customers don’t care. I have had SSP from the start I have NEVER had a customer tell me they are shopping with me because of some little star. Star seller is not part of search really. It is in filters. Many shops are doing very well here WITHOUT Star seller badge. 

lots of the so called info on this forum is just other sellers Opinions of what is going on and you might only “hear” the part of the story they want you to. 

if you posted on the Technical forum your issue and or filed a help ticket. Then let Etsy do its thing. It might take them some time to fix tho. They are not exactly fast at these things. 

[MOOKbyMDS]

Thank you for your comment. It reduced my stress a bit, so I appreciate it. They need to remove a function that buyers can narrow to visit only shops have a star seller budge if they can't deal with the system issue, in my opinion...

[TheHomespunLoft]

@MOOKbyMDS 

You seem  to be still worried about the SSP we are trying to tell you it is not a big deal. Look around— there are lots of shops with thousands of sales who do not have it. Try looking at other country shops who just can’t get it due to tracking issues. Their shops are doing fine without it. 

when you shop here do you use the SSP filter?? I don’t and I shop a fair bit here. I bet most customers off the street have no idea what it is or what it is for. 

just try not to worry about it. Likely it is something else if you feel you have slow sales. 

[DragonflyDreams1]

How can anyone be certain what impact star seller has? I have seen emails come through from Etsy that star seller is being promoted. I have seen statements from Etsy that they have done tests promoting star sellers in search. Some stores with star seller will do poorly, stores without it will do well. But no one can say for certain that it doesn't impact a store. I cannot see how star seller doesn't impact quality scores. With Etsy it is always best to do what they state they want. In the end, it always impacts sales in one way or another.

[BagmakerSupply]

@MOOKbyMDS: "... so asked them to change the status manually ..." Etsy has said repeatedly that they will not manually change Star Seller stats. What they have been able to do in some cases was to fix the underlying data and then the Star Seller stats auto update (but not retroactively).

Unfortunately, the missing processing time issue has been known to Etsy for some time and not yet been addressed by them as far as we can tell.

"Since I lost the budge, I lost many customers ..." Just out of curiosity, what are you basing this statement on? Etsy does so much tweaking and testing that cause and effect correlations are almost impossible to make.

[MOOKbyMDS]

Thank you for your comment. I really appreciate it! If they can't solve this issue, they need to remove a function that buyers narrow to visit only shops have a budge, I think.

[TheHomespunLoft]

@DragonflyDreams1 

And yet no one can tell you that it also does impact your shop. 

some shops will struggle to get it due to maybe the price of their items. And UK sellers who are on the forums who talk about tracking. Yet those same shops are doing great here without it. 

just trying to tell the OP not to stress too much over it. If Etsy can fix it they will in their time frame. 
But it is not the end of the world not to have it-especially thru no fault of your own like in this case. 

[audreytherese]

"so asked them to change the status manually because I read other sellers commented here that they did it for them."

I have never once seen a seller state that Etsy manually changed anything to give them their SS status. 

At most they've corrected issues that would be reflected in the account for when the next month rolled around. So if they did find a bug and fixed it, that may make you eligible come November 1, but not before that. Never ever have they recalculated mid-month to issue stars on any day but the 1st. 

There are also so many posts about people that have seen no increase of sales when they received the badge (usually the posts are created because they are questioning it, as they thought that was what was missing to why they weren't making more sales and couldn't understand why nothing changed once receiving it). I don't recall ever seeing anyone, a poster or commenter, that has remarked having seen a significant increase of sales after receiving the star status, with one exception. But that shop admitted it was because earning the star gave them the motivation to revamp their shop, re-do all their photos, make sure their titles and tags were on point, and basically step up their game over all. Likely they would have seen that same increase without the star after all those updates, it just happened to be their motivation. 

[PalmBeachSun]

I received an email saying there was an issue and I may lose by seller status. They said to check my email for an explanation but there was nothing there. I tried to change my email and they kept saying they were sending a code but it never arrived. The message from Etsy disappeared.

[dippeldiundscribble]

@PalmBeachSun 

A code for what?

Sounds more like a scam attempt from someone claiming to be Etsy. 

New “From Etsy” section in Messages

Protect Your Account From Scammers

[PalmBeachSun]

I was thinking the same thing because now I am getting notifications like yours. I am glad we were warned. Thanks for your response