Star Seller Program Counter Productive and Flawed

[SherbertGlass]

I recently had a local sale and hand delivered a shipment. Because there was no tracking number, my Etsy Star Seller delivery rating went from 100% to 85%.  I sold an additional 8 orders with tracking and my delivery rating when up to 91%.  I took advanced calculous and bookkeeping in college and I can't figure out their math.  Why does selling one item with no tracking reduce your rating by 15% but selling 8 more with tracking only raises your rating another 6% . This doesn't seem right and when I contacted Etsy support online chat, they didn't have any answers and just kept repeating that orders with no tracking hurts your Star Rating, but they evaded answering why 

[CappuccinoLace]

How many orders did you have when you had 100%?

For example if you had 4 orders and 1 was without tracking, 3/4 = 75%, you get 5 more orders 8/9 = 88%.

It's a simple how many orders with tracking, divided by how many orders overall = %.

[SherbertGlass]

When I had 100% I had 8 orders

[CappuccinoLace · Accepted solution]

So, 8 out of 8 = 100%

7/8 = 87.5%

8 orders + another 8 orders = 15/16 = 93.75%

It actually gives you a breakdown if you click on it.

[SherbertGlass]

So the math is right but this seems to be a flawed program.  Why get penalized for hand delivering an order?  Should instead of delivering or getting the customer to pick up, we tell the customer to do a private sale in this case and cut Etsy out. This way our Star Rating doesn't go down and we don't have to pay for Etsy's commission and fees.  This seems to be counter productive for Etsy. They seem to be driving business away for all the local sales initialed by their site.

[HtoHdesign · Accepted solution]

Hi there!

Currently, tracking metrics don’t account for local pickup, shipping without tracking if not in a market with an exception, or in person delivery. All physical orders must include a valid tracking number or a shipping label purchased on Etsy to be counted positively towards your on time shipping & tracking. All shipping labels purchased on Etsy count positively towards to the score, even if they don't come with tracking

We’re currently working on an option for sellers to tag the order as a pickup so that this can count towards Star Seller moving forward. In the meantime, please know that Etsy understands that Star Seller may not be viable for every shop. Star Seller is not a disciplinary program and sellers will not be penalized for low scores. Additionally, having the badge doesn't give sellers an edge over other sellers in search ranking.

Thanks!

[FabioMcMustache · Accepted solution]

Hello, and welcome to the Etsy Community Forums!

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.

Having said that, and since this thread does not pertain to a technical issue, it will be closed to prevent it from going off-topic.

Thank you!

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