Sad :( Going to lose my star seller status and it's Etsy's fault

[FuzzyFoxDesigns]

I know this isn't the be all and end all, and the relative importance of star seller in the algorithm is questionable, but a situation I am in has made me cry this morning. 

A major cross stitching company contacted me via Etsy about a feature and Etsy automatically marked it spam, so I didn't get any emails. I have had several emails with this company in the past that I have responded to. I noticed it today and unmarked it as spam to reply, but I didn't notice it was more than 24 hours old... I don't get many emails, so this one mistake by Etsy is going to cost me my star seller status. I tried to mark it as spam again to avoid getting dinged as it takes months to get my status back, but it is not spam and never was. Etsy's crappy algorithm that identified this email as spam in the first place is going to cost me my star seller status, and has now meant that I have had to block a major company that emailed me about a promotional feature in an attempt to not lose my status.

I am just frustrated. I don't check my SPAM folder for over 24 hours and I could lose my star seller status. The conversation algorithm is too tight. One missed email takes months to recover from :'( I have explained all of this to the company and shared how difficult it is to work around this system in Etsy, so they contact artists by email in future. But the whole thing is crappy and upsetting. I should be excited instead of crying right now :'(

[LittleGemGirl]

I don't think that will count against you since it was marked as spam. Here is what it even says in the spam folder -

Marked as spam by Etsy

"Keep in mind, messages in your spam folder don't affect your Star Seller badges. If you don't think this message is spam, you can move it to your Inbox."

[FuzzyFoxDesigns]

But if you unmark it as spam, doesn't the timing work as the timing of the original message, so if you reply after 24 hours from when it was originally sent you get penalised?

[LittleGemGirl]

I don't think so, I think it would start the clock from the time you move it to your inbox.

[FuzzyFoxDesigns]

That would make sense, but I don't think that is how Etsy's system works. I think it goes on original message timing. I've been caught before replying to questions in a purchase. Before you reply, they don't count as emails... but if you reply, the timing of the original message in the order counts, so if you reply to a message in an order after 24 hours you get dinged. If you never reply to it you don't.

[SugarTaffySoap]

@FuzzyFoxDesigns  If messages are in spam it does not affect your star seller status. 

[FuzzyFoxDesigns]

But I moved it to my inbox to reply, then thought maybe that would hurt me so I moved it back to spam... it isn't spam and shouldn't be there, but I am trying not to get hurt because of Etsy's mistake marking this as spam in the first place :'(

[PillowDetails]

Oh that's a bummer if it counts agai st you.  I'm sorry this happened to you.  It should show in your SS stats page if it counted against you - maybe check there in a day or two, and come back to let us know!

[EmilyBalivet]

Ok. After reading your post, I went to look at my spam folder - and same thing. An inquiry from a publisher was sent directly to spam by Etsy - not me. In order to respond, I had to move it to the inbox. The messages were from over a week ago. We'll see what happens to my message response stats. In the meantime, lesson learned! Check the spam folder everyday!

[FuzzyFoxDesigns]

Ugh, I am sorry that has happened to you. I feel it's unreasonable to expect people to check their spam folders daily ... if that were the case, it would be better for nothing to be automatically marked as spam, so you at least get the reminder email about someone contacting you on Etsy and you have a highlighted email in your inbox. It feels sneaky. I don't like things that deliberately make life more difficult. 

[GlassyFields]

I hope that the message Etsy marked as spam doesn't count against you.

And yeah ... it never occurred to me to check my spam folder ever. But it seems there is now spam that might not be spam. 

Once upon a time I would have voted to let sellers determine what was spam and what was not. But sellers, especially new sellers, were getting deluged with spam, hence Etsy's attempt to fix. So now I'm not sure which is worse, sorting through messages and dumping the spam or sorting through spam and rescuing legitimate messages.

[FuzzyFoxDesigns]

I am not sure on the rules here. Maybe I am panicked over nothing. The issue then is that the rules seem unclear, and I've been hurt by this in the past... one convo I missed took 2 months to recover from as I don't get many convos, and I got dinged for a late response to a message in an order... I would have been better to not have replied and started a new thread, a message in an order doesn't count as an email until you reply - I don't think that is spelled out at all in the rules and I learned that one the hard way! 

The initial email in this thread was in 15 Jun, 2023. I think I responded within 24 hours (has same date, but we're in different time zones)... but I am not sure that a delayed response there would count anyway, as they seem to only count "first emails" in a thread when those first emails are in the reference window, not subsequent emails in a thread? The last email from them was 2 days ago, which went to spam and I missed it so replied today. 

I am pretty sure if you mark an email as spam after 24 hours you were still dinged for it. I am not sure what happens if you unmark it as spam and it's already over 24 hours old, and then remark it as spam within a few minutes? Does it count against you if it was ever an email in your inbox (even momentarily) that you didn't reply to or mark as spam within 24 hours? 

I am there for the reviews part of this... the email part seems really unfair to me, it would be different if I got enough emails that it didn't hurt for so long. When you get one email every week or so anything you miss because it goes to spam by mistake really hurts. I'm just not in the habit of checking spam... with gmail I don't need to, their algorithm hasn't mistakenly flagged an email as spam for me in over a year, and I get several spam emails daily. 

[PrairiePrimitives]

@FuzzyFoxDesigns If the Etsy message you didn't reply to within 24 hours was part of an ongoing message thread (which it sounds like), it won't count against you, even if years have passed since the original message. 

[TheHomespunLoft]

@FuzzyFoxDesigns 

I am unclear why this company is contacting you thru Etsy? You Said they have been in contact with you before.. why don't they just email you then? (not on Etsy).

Whatever.. Good luck

[CryzalisMasksUK]

I thought that when a message was marked as spam, it does not count. But if you move it to your inbox, the system will register the first time and date of contact. So if you noticed it late, then your reply is registered as late.

It only does not count, if it remains in spam 

[CarpetCollectionAU]

I agree with @CryzalisMasksUK Initially, when SSP was introduced, people were using the "Spam" function to move Messages they missed to avoid being "dinged" for SSP late response.

Then they were replying straight from "Spam" Folder. I do not know if this is still possible as I have never tried it.

In recent months, it appears that Etsy has modified themontoring of  movement between "Spam" and "In Box". Now, according to reports here in Forums, moving a message from "Spam" to "In Box" reinstates the original date received and, if this is over 24 hours, the SSP data for "SpeedtResponse" reverts to the date and time the Message was received.

The only option is to check "Spam" every day and be very careful to note the dateand time of the message before deciding to move it to "In Box" or find an alternative way of responding.

[FanciiPantz]

My response rate went from 100% to 92% for NO REASON. "Star Seller" department acknowledged there is no late responses but said they can't change it. Unfreakinbelievable!!!

[dippeldiundscribble]

Download the CSV…

[PillowDetails]

Hmmm ...  just checked my spam folder, and it's empty.  I know there were past spams there.  I didn't remove them.

[bradgoodell]

Etsy is now removing them after a certain time period passes.  

[GroundZeroCreations]

Since you moved the message from the spam folder to the inbox, I am pretty sure it will count as a message not answered in a timely fashion. If this was not an Etsy related messaged and you said they have contacted you before, do you not have their contact information outside of Etsy? If you do, that would be the smartest way to respond instead of moving the message form spam to your inbox. I keep all my messaging for things outside of Etsy to a personal email address. I guess it would also be smart to check your Etsy messages folder every day the same way we do our personal email folders.

As for SS, I lost it once because Etsy counted a package as not having tracking when it was purchased on Etsy with tracking. They said it was a glitch but they did nothing to correct my SS status. If I am honest, I don't think it affected my sales in any way. 

[ManInTheMoonHerbs]

Wish Etsy held themselves to the same standards required of the sellers!

I had messages from a customer marked as "reaching out for the first time" even though we had messaged back and forth over a dozen times. In one thread from them with 8 messages back and forth, a reply from my customer that was the natural end of the conversation was marked as a late reply even though no response from me was needed.

Customer service said it's a known bug. Etsy did nothing to correct their error. I tried chat and they still haven't replied over a week later. I did get a response when I eventually emailed, but there was no solution offered. 

[SmudgePlant]

If the message still shows as part of a thread when you took it out of Spam then it shouldn't be counted against you because it did not start a new thread: not a new message.

Congratulations on the feature.

[irmaKdesigns]

@SmudgePlant "If the message still shows as part of a thread..."

That's what I think too. It's not a new message.

This company probably is contacting other Etsy sellers with same message, so Etsy considers it spam.

@FuzzyFoxDesigns if it's a new message, just send it to spam few days before the end of each month, and unspam it everytime you need to respond. Ask them to contact you directly to avoid this spam game.

[FuzzyFoxDesigns]

@irmaKdesigns yes, I think because they had contacted me previously from the same Etsy account and it's not a new message I'll be ok... but they might accidentally be hurting the same small sellers they're trying to promote if Etsy's scam filter is hiding the emails in the spam folder and people don't notice for 24 hours like me. It's unfortunate that Etsy's system can't handle complexities like this... they're shooting themselves in the foot if genuine promotional opportunities are send to spam. Thanks for the tips... I did explain this situation to the company and ask them to email people in future to avoid accidentally harming small businesses.