Star Seller Communication

[JacobsForkFlyTying]

My communication score dropped because I did not a respond to a message soliciting legal services. 

1) why is Etsy allowing Etsy messages from  solicitors? 

2) I should have as e the option to block them. 

3) I should not loose my status secondary to not responding to spam. 

Please  review the algorithm. 

[ChristmasIsLove]

Read the rules on your Star Seller dashboard.

You have to mark a message as spam for it to be treated as spam. Etsy can't read all of every seller's messages to determine whether they are spam.

[NanaLetha]

The criteria is there for you to read. Try the seller's handbook, your dashboard or the help center.

[HazelsSewingSupplies]

Or the trillion and one posts in the Forum.....

[BagmakerSupply]

@JacobsForkFlyTying  :  Etsy does not allow it, but do you want them to read all of your messages? Did you mark the message as spam AND report it so Etsy could investigate and shut the account down? For all we complain about Etsy they have been very clear and consistent about messages / convos from the very beginning. Just to clarify so people don't think they have to respond to every message and it will be a never ending loop: the FIRST message of a NEW thread must be replied to 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 and also reported as SPAM. Those have always been the rules. By the way, if you are creating a custom listing based on the message, you still need to reply to the message. Etsy is now putting a blue text warning / advisory on those messages they consider to be a "new message".

[DesertChains]

1. Etsy software can’t distinguish solicitations.

2. you should but Etsy hasn’t created that function.

3. you shouldn’t, but you will.

what you do have are the ability to mark messages as spam and the ability to report messages—but it’s up to you to use them. You can’t complain if you choose not to use the tools provided.

[thePaperFramer]

Oh how I wish for a day that there are no new posts where someone doesn't know the rules about responding to messages, gets dinged and complains about it here.

But that is probably never going to happen, New day, new complaints from folk who didn't read the star seller protocols.

[cutebutton]

@thePaperFramer 

I would say the chance of that is about the same as the chance of etsy lowering fees and getting rid of the star seller program.  Basically it's a 0% chance.

[OneEyeCatStudio]

"Oh how I wish for a day that there are no new posts where someone doesn't know the rules about responding to messages, gets dinged and complains about it here."

You know you cannot control what others do, but you can  make that happen for yourself, can't you?

[BagmakerSupply]

@thePaperFramer   Maybe an Etsy bot should be programmed to not allow people to post anything that includes "Star Seller" and "Unfairly Dinged For Not Replying To A Message" and redirect them to https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403058372503-How-to-Become-a-Star-Seller?segment=selling

[thePaperFramer]

I'd vote for that.

[JacobsForkFlyTying]

Thank you all for your timely response. What we have here is MY failure to communicate. I had no idea I could mark as spam. Thanks all for pointing that out, lesson learned  and we can consider my problem solved. Again appreciate everyone’s feedback. I’m a happy Etsy overachiever  again. 

[BagmakerSupply · Accepted solution]

@JacobsForkFlyTying   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.

[JacobsForkFlyTying]

Done- I’ve never in 7 years had any messages that were not from a customer- so I really had no frame of reference on it. Again, truly appreciate your time and insight.