Star Seller Badge removed incorrectly

[ParadiseFruitages]

Can you please explain why I did not get star badge for January. The only message that I did not answer in 24hrs was of a product I purchased and the seller was reminding me to download. 

[TheVintagePineapple]

You explained it yourself -- you didn't respond to a message.  Every initial message needs to be either answered or spammed.  In your case, spamming it wouldn't be appropriate though.

[PlatypusDream]

https://www.etsy.com/your/shops/me/star-seller?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

What messages count towards the message response rate?

Your message response rate is based on just the first message in a conversation, not ongoing conversations. This means you just need to respond to the first message within 24 hours. This applies to messages both from buyer and seller accounts. Messages from Etsy staff do not count toward your response rate, and neither do messages that you mark as spam.

[BagmakerSupply]

@ParadiseFruitages:  How was "Star Seller Badge removed incorrectly"?

"The only message that I did not answer in 24hrs was of a product I purchased ..." As it says right on your Star Seller page and elsewhere, you need to reply to the FIRST message of EVERY NEW INCOMING THREAD within 24 hours. It does not matter who sent it, the subject matter, if it is a duplicate or blank or anything else. If it is SPAM then it should be marked as such.

A controversial workaround : if the unanswered new thread is not a Help Request, at least for the time being, it appears that marking an unanswered new thread as SPAM (even after the 24 hour deadline has passed) will cause your reply percentage to change in a day or two (but not retroactively) 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.

[ParadiseFruitages]

Thanks for that information. Although that was a personal message and not sent to my shop I would get penalize for this is what your saying?

This is very interesting 

[BootifulLabels · Accepted solution]

If you buy from the same account your shop is on, YES, any incoming message is counted, regardless of who its from or what is is concerning.

If you don't want your purchases to jeopardise your SS stats, open a new account specifically for buying and keep your purchases separate.