Message ad

[JustAGalBoutique]

I received a message that was an ad for Etsy SEO, and I did not respond due to it not having anything to do with my store.  This caused my message response to go down to 67%. I don't think I should be required to respond to spam?

[NanaLetha]

You are not required to respond but you can mark as spam.

[OmasFabricStash]

If you want the SS you need to either respond or send it to spam. If you don’t respond to the first message then you get dinged. 

[vintageNCtreasures]

You're not required to respond to spam. 

Mark spam as spam and you won't get dinged for not answering the message.

[PlatypusDream]

Anyone offering you help with SEO through messages is either a spammer or scammer.

[ArtDollsbyJD]

You must reply or spam NEW messages no matter their source.   Spam it and if you want contact Etsy to report misuse of the message system.

[BagmakerSupply]

@JustAGalBoutique: Probably almost everyone on this forum can sympathize with you but there are innumerable threads about your exact issue on this forum. As it says right on your Star Seller page the FIRST message of EVERY NEW INCOMING thread must be replied to within 24 hours. 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". Subsequent messages from the same account (a buyer may have multiple accounts) are supposed to be combined into a single thread with some exceptions.

Help Requests always start a new thread.

If you are creating a custom listing based on a new thread, you still need to reply to the message.

Cancellation requests in a new thread must be replied to in the actual message - replies using the cancellation form do not count as a response.

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.