As the subject says, If I bought something and the seller messages me an informational message and I don't reply to it, it affects my Star seller rating? That system seems...flawed.
Yes. The rules are on your Star Seller dashboard (and repeated in 1000s of other Forum threads asking the same question you did). All messages have counted since the program began. How do you expect Etsy to be able to tell the difference between informational messages from other sellers and inquiries from potential buyers, especially since many users are both buyers and sellers? It's impossible to distinguish. And they all count. Either reply within 24 hours or mark them as spam.
Yes. The rules are on your Star Seller dashboard (and repeated in 1000s of other Forum threads asking the same question you did). All messages have counted since the program began. How do you expect Etsy to be able to tell the difference between informational messages from other sellers and inquiries from potential buyers, especially since many users are both buyers and sellers? It's impossible to distinguish. And they all count. Either reply within 24 hours or mark them as spam.
The system is not flawed. That's how the star seller program has worked for well over a year now. There're a gazillion posts about this.
It doesn't matter if a message is from a buyer, a seller or a friend you have to reply to ALL NEW messages. Etsy has no way of knowing what the message is or who it's from.
It's on the help pages and your star seller page on your dashboard.
Reply to the first message within 24 hours
Just the first message in the thread counts, not the ongoing convo.
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.
Just remember that auto reply can only be set for 5 days max.You will need to reset it every 5 days to keep it on.
edit to add- doh! totally forgot that they added a weekly auto reply message option. No idea how that one works or if it will work for you but help center has the info here if you need it
Did you receive a new message? Did you reply to it within 24 hours? If the answer is yes to both questions then you are okay. If the second question is no then it goes against your SS score. I think there is at least 1 thread a day about this. I don’t know if Etsy knew there would be this much confusion about it.
Yea, still really new at all of this. I probably should had dug a smidge deeper when searching about it and I definitely fell into the ago old trap of not RTFM. I appreciate the help!
