Star Seller Bug - Email problems

[ChopaTribe]

I have recently had my Star Seller status for communication reduced below target, for 1 email that was from a seller i purchased from. They had sent me the wrong shipping info when they. dispatched it and sent a an email to me with the updated details.  Why am i being deducted for late communications when i was the buyer in this case.  Its never happened before, i would really like it fixed before the end of the cycle please. I've worked hard to maintain my seller status and shouldn't lose it for an etsy malfunction.  Anyone else experiencing this?

[TROPICALBREEZECANDLE]

It’s not an Etsy malfunction. You MUST reply to all messages.

[BootifulLabels]

The SS conditions quite clearly state that you must reply to ALL new messages within 24 hrs (or mark them as spam), regardless of who they are from or what they are about. The whole process is managed by AI and the program has no way of knowing if you are the buyer or the seller in any particular message.  No-one reads your messages for context.  There is nothing to fix, you either answer within 24 hrs or you don't.   In this case you didn't.

If you don't want your purchases to affect your SS status, you have a couple of options.

• You can use Auto reply to send a "thank you" or an "I'll get back to you shortly" message.  This counts as a response for SS, but needs to be reset every five days.
• You can create a few snippets with various messages and send quick responses that way in just 3 clicks, Snippets/Select/Send.
• You can create a new, buyer only Etsy account and keep all your purchases separate from your shop.

[BagmakerSupply · Accepted solution]

@ChopaTribe: eMails are not part of Star Seller, only Etsy messages. You should check the CSV file available on your Star Seller page to confirm which message(s) Etsy thinks you did answer within 24 hours.

While probably almost everyone on this forum can sympathize with you, as it says right on your Star Seller page, you need to reply to the FIRST message of every NEW INCOMING THREAD. 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. Those have always been the rules.

If the 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.