Message Reply Rating

[abcPartyCo]

My message reply rating recently decreased to 91% for 1 message that was not responded to within 24 hours.  Upon reviewing the Message Reply Document/Report this 1 message was an automated reply from someone I had purchased from - not sold to!!! Which should not count against my Star Seller rating. 

[dippeldiundscribble]

@abcPartyCo 

Go to your Star Seller page and scroll down to the Q&A section.

https://www.etsy.com/your/shops/me/star-seller

Questions? We’ve got answers. -> Messages -> What messages count towards the message response rate?

Your message response rate is based on just the first message in a conversation, not ongoing conversations. This means you just need to respond to the first message within 24 hours. This applies to messages both from buyer and seller accounts. Messages from Etsy staff do not count toward your response rate, and neither do messages that you mark as spam. You can also now find a breakdown of your message response rate score by downloading a CSV.

[abcPartyCo]

I located this information as well.  I find it frustrating that an automated message from a seller messaging me on my personal Etsy account about an item being delivered, not only required a response within 24 hours, but then the lack of response affected my business account.  This is definitely something that should be re-evaluated. 

[dippeldiundscribble]

The moment a store is linked to an account, it is no longer a personal account.

Familiarize yourself with all the options provided by Etsy and use them to meet the criteria.

1. Set up auto-reply
2. Create and use saved replies
3. Mark as spam 
4. Set up a buyer account for your purchases
5. Purchase as a Guest

*1: How to set an auto-reply for Messages

*2: How to Use Saved Replies in Messages

[ArtDollsbyJD]

@abcPartyCo    You don't have a personal account only if you have a shop too.  The account is seen as a buyer/seller account.  Etsy is not going to take the time nor should they decide what message is you as  buyer and what is you as seller.

If you want to keep buyer separate open a buyer only account. 

[BagmakerSupply]

@abcPartyCo: Probably almost everyone on this forum can sympathize with you but a quick search would show you innumerable threads about your exact issue. As it says right on your Star Seller page, you need to reply to every FIRST message of a NEW INCOMING THREAD. It does not matter who sent it, the subject matter, if it is a duplicate or blank or anything else. If it is SPAM then it should be marked as such. Those have always been the rules.

Etsy is now putting a blue text warning / advisory (blue banner on desktop, and a blue dot on mobile) on those messages they consider to be a "new message" but should semantically be called a "new thread".

If the unanswered message is not a Help Request, at least for the time being, it appears that marking an unanswered message as SPAM (even after the 24 hour deadline has passed) will cause your reply percentage to change in a day or two if the original message was within the current star seller period. Note that subsequent messages from that account may go directly to the SPAM folder.

[PiecesOfMePaperCraft · Accepted solution]

Every initial message needs to be responded to or marked as spam. Etsy doesn't know whether it's coming from a buyer or seller.

If you don't want to deal with this you can open a second Etsy account just for purchases.