Star Seller Message Response Rate

[HomeLeighHomeware]

Hey, 

I'm currently a Star Seller and have been for months, however my message response rate for October has dropped as I didn't reply quickly enough to a message totally unrelated to my business. I bought something from another seller and they reached out to let me know about a delay in shipping but as this wasn't technically from a customer of mine, I didn't think to reply within 24hrs which has thus affected my October Star Seller progress. 

Is there anyway this can be rectified? I really don't want to lose my badge, and think it would be unfair to considering this missed message (from a personal purchase) isn't reflective of how I do business!

Thanks, 

Rhia 

[PathogenyxFungi · Accepted solution]

Move it to Spam and it won't count against you.

[CraftyCornishMaids]

reply to all new message threads

means

reply to all new message threads

Etsy even highlights them in blue for us, so we don't miss them

[mommawhazelsquilts]

It's hard to believe that after a year we are still getting these posts.....

What part of "all new messages" do people not understand?

Everytime I see one of these posts I wonder if the seller is one of those that continually complain about buyers not reading descriptions.

[SugarTaffySoap]

Here's what a Community Specialist has posted in several threads recently re Star Seller:

"We suggest using the Forums' Search function prior to posting (just be careful to not bump an old thread that hasn't seen any activity in the last months/years), as questions regarding the Star Seller Program have been extensively covered by our fellow members since its launch, as well as our official Star Seller Guide, which contains in-depth answers to some of the more common questions regarding Message Response Rate, Shipping, Local Pick-Up, Digital Orders, and other topics. You can check it out here:etsy.com/starseller. "

[BagmakerSupply]

@HomeLeighHomeware: As mentioned, there are innumerable threads about this exact issue in this forum. The Star Seller metric is that the FIRST message of a NEW thread must be replied to (or marked as spam) within 24 hours. Subsequent messages from the same account (a buyer may have multiple accounts) are supposed to be combined into a single thread.

The CSV file appears to contain only the first messages of a new thread as that is all that is used for calculations.

Help Requests always start a new thread. By the way, if you are creating a custom listing based on a new thread, 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".

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. But be aware that doing so may cause you to miss other messages from that account.

If you have not yet done so, you might want to read https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/4403058372503-How-to-Become-a-Star-Seller?segment=selling