Star Seller Miscalculation

[KreepyKawaiiDesigns]

This feels completely unfair to me because I did not respond to 1 message within 24 hours in the past 3 months I had my star seller removed. The message I did not respond to was not even from a customer but from another etsy seller asking me to leave a review on an item that I had not even received yet. Has anyone had this changed? I was on vacation so I did not respond until the next day and had no idea it would affect this. Also, is it normal practice for shops to reach out for feedback? This is not something I have ever done. It felt pushy.

[NanaLetha]

You have 3 choices - respond before 24 hrs, mark as spam or ignore. 

[BagmakerSupply · Accepted solution]

@KreepyKawaiiDesigns: Probably almost everyone on this forum can sympathize with you but there are  innumerable threads about your exact issue. 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.

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 (but not retroactively). Note that subsequent messages from that account may go directly to the SPAM folder.

[AutumnHollowStudio]

All initial messages sent in a new conversation need to be replied to within 24 hours in order to meet the star seller metric for replying to messages, including messages from a seller you purchased from.

If the message from a seller is an unsolicited request for feedback or something similar, then mark it spam and you won't be required to respond. If the seller is just letting you know your order shipped, reply with a "thank you" within the 24 hr window. Anything else regarding your order should be replied to.

[KreepyKawaiiDesigns]

Thank you! I'm going to mark it as spam and see if that changes anything in the next few days.

[FairybehindtheDoor]

You can also set up automatic replies. I use this all the time just to say that I will get back to them with 2-3 hours with any info they need. This has worked for me.