Responding to Messages

[KWLaserCraft]

The message response portion does not calculate responses correctly. It was counted against me that I did not respond to a couple of messages. The messages that were counted against me were from a couple of shops that I purchased from. One was from a shop asking me to leave a review on an item I purchased and the other was from a shop owner thanking me for my purchase. Neither one of these messages require a response.

[OwlAlwaysKnit · Accepted solution]

Sorry to say a lot of sellers get caught out by this but it is explained in the SS info

Extract

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. 

[KWLaserCraft]

Thank you for the straight forward response.  Much appreciated.

[HazelsSewingSupplies]

There has been literally hundreds of posts like this in the past 18-20 months since SSB started.

It's obvious in these cases that sellers did not read the rules for the program.

The rules have been - Since Day 1 - that all messages from both BUYERS AND SELLERS need to be responded to within 24 hours.

It literally cannot get any plainer than that.

Etsy is really good about putting information on the Dashboard Page of our shops.  It's up to us to read it and implement it whenever needed.

Sadly, a lot of sellers that don't read the rules are the same ones that complain that buyers don't read descriptions.  Not saying that's true in this case, but it is in a lot of them.

Click on that Dashboard page daily is my advice - that way you will know what Etsy has in store for us and how they expect us to use it.

[CherryTees]

This definitely gets a lot of sellers which is why I always try and get the last word in

[HazelsSewingSupplies]

This seller was not "gotten".  They just didn't respond as they should have.

You don't have to get the "last word" in.  You just have to answer that first message regardless of who sent it - buyer, seller, friend.

No need to keep responding after the initial response.