I have been working really hard to get my badge but I received a message from a seller that I bought a mockup from that was advertising more things to buy from them that I didn't reply to and that knocked my score down to 80%. Really frustrating and shouldn't count.
Sorry you have been caught out with this but it does clearly state in the SS badge rules that all initial messages have to be answered or you could have marked it as spam.
https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403058372503-How-to-Become-a-Star-Seller?segment=selling
The Message response rate only applies to the first message in a thread. Initial messages from both buyers and sellers on Etsy are counted towards the Message response rate.
Sorry you have been caught out with this but it does clearly state in the SS badge rules that all initial messages have to be answered or you could have marked it as spam.
https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403058372503-How-to-Become-a-Star-Seller?segment=selling
The Message response rate only applies to the first message in a thread. Initial messages from both buyers and sellers on Etsy are counted towards the Message response rate.
Yes it counts.
The rules have been clear for almost 3 years now.
It's stated in the help pages and your shop manager page.
ALL messages need to be replied to or marked as spam.
It doesn't matter if the message is from a buyer, a seller, a friend.
Mark as spam.
You need to respond to every new message. No matter if it's from a seller or buyer, if you have answered the message in a different message thread, etc. This is stated in the star seller rules found in your shop manager. You can send messages to spam and they don't count against you. Spam the message from the seller and it should update in a few days. This might bring your % back up.
You can also set up auto reply.
Spam it and it will come off in a couple days. Live and learn. Consider buying from a buying only account or as a guest to avoid seller messages on your business message page..or realize you have to respond to them with a Thanks or whatever within 24 hours.
Mark it as spam, it will reset your percentages in a few days and be fine, there's no time limit for marking as spam, as long as you do it before the star seller badge is awarded. I got mine knocked down due to the app not giving me message notifications and missing 2 messages. I marked them as spam after replying and I'm back up at 100%
@MysticInnCreations: Probably almost everyone on this forum can sympathize with you but as it says right on your Star Seller page, the Star Seller metric is that 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.
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".
"... that was advertising more things to buy from them ..." Under Etsy's Terms Of Use, that message was clearly SPAM.
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 (but not retroactively). Note that subsequent messages from that account may go directly to the SPAM folder.
I think messages on that message thread will go to spam but not new messages not attached to that thread from that poster. Just spamming a message from a poster does not stop them from being able to send you a new unrelated message (unless they changed something)
Tell the person that it is against the rules to send unsolicited promotional materials. This solves the problem of answering the message and, if they stop sending promotional material, saves the seller from being muted and saves others from being spammed.