Message response

[GothicGiftsTreasures]

Hi,

I was sent a promotion message by someone I have previously bought from. As it was a message which did not require, or ask for a response, it would have seemed odd to them for me to reply.

As this was in effect an advertising message, I feel it is unfair that I have been marked down on my star seller status because of this.

I had already suffered the frustration of losing status last month due to someone giving me a 4 star review, only for them to correct it to 5 stars just after the cut off date.

John Sunderland

GothicGiftsTreasures

[Former_Member · Accepted solution]

Mark the message as spam and your score should go back up within a couple of days.

[sarahsmemory]

Set up "auto-reply".  Etsy counts that as a reply.

[JDTotesnDolls]

Read the information on the Star seller program.  We are required to respond to every new message or if no response needed spam the message.  Etsy tells us this upfront in the information.

[CustomPacifier]

Well this should be made clearer because my impression was if you have answered the first time when the conversation has started then all other messages after that don't count towards getting penalized, you can see here https://app.screencast.com/qMGW21pqEfq9B , I mean how the heck are you meant to keep responding to someone when they reply with "Thanks"...what do you say..thanks for saying thanks?...I ususally respond with "You are welcome, but often times they will respond again....I have been so close to Star so many months but always get pena;lized for not being the last one to end the conversation.

[BagmakerSupply · Accepted solution]

@CustomPacifier: For Star Seller you only need to reply to the FIRST message of a NEW INCOMING THREAD.

Subsequent messages from the same account (a buyer may have multiple accounts) are supposed to be combined into a single thread.

What seems to trip many people up are "Help Requests". They always start a new thread.

The CSV file available on your Star Seller Page will tell you which new threads Etsy thinks you did not answer within 24 hours. The file includes only the first message of a new incoming thread and is in UTC not your local time zone.

If an 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.