Message response issue for Star Seller.

[DaubsDesign]

A buyer asked me to cancel an order which I did right away. But because I didn't write anything to him it counted me as not answering his question. But the only response needed was to cancel his order. Which I did within a few minutes.

[NanaLetha]

You must reply or mark as spam 

[BagmakerSupply · Accepted solution]

@DaubsDesign:  Probably almost everyone on this forum can sympathize with you but a quick search would show you innumerable threads about your exact issue.

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

The Star Seller metric is that the FIRST message of a NEW thread must be replied to (or marked as spam) within 24 hours. Subsequent messages from the same account (a buyer may have multiple accounts) are supposed to be combined into a single thread.

Help Requests always start a new thread. By the way, if you are creating a custom listing based on a new thread, you still need to reply to the message. Etsy is now putting a blue text warning / advisory on those messages they consider to be a "new message" but should semantically be called a "new thread".

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 be aware that doing so may cause other messages from that account to go directly to the spam folder.

[HazelsSewingSupplies · Accepted solution]

You needed to answer him back and say "yep, I will cancel the order".  Cancelling the order is not the same as replying to the message.

[DaubsDesign]

Thanks for the replies. I know that now but there was know way of knowing before hand.