Star Seller Response Rate Calculation

[BonBonStore]

I response to all my buyers with in 24 hours. 2 days ago i have received a message from a seller who is just letting me know that his digital download has been updated, and i can re download the new file.

This did not require any kind of response.

Today i see that my response rate has been dropped saying i did not responded to message with in 24 hours. 

Why is this affecting my seller account ? Why should my seller account be punished where i am the buyer and message did not require any response.

Christmas is coming and i lost my star seller badge for no reason. I hope higher level can look in to this situation.

Thank you

[CatsWhiskersCurios · Accepted solution]

If you look at your star seller dashboard it clearly states that messages from both buyers and sellers count towards the badge. It’s always been that way.

[NanaLetha]

Thank you would have been a good response 

[BootifulLabels]

Why is this affecting my seller account ? Why should my seller account be punished where i am the buyer and message did not require any response

Because YOU chose to use your seller account to make a purchase.  

The rules clearly state that all new messages require an answer or to be marked as spam within 24 hrs in order to qualify for SS. It doesn't matter who they are from or what they are about, no-one reads your messages, the system is automated and simply compares the time-stamps for receipt and response to determine compliance. If you mark that message as spam now, it should update your stats within a day or two, but it will not help with the badges already awarded.

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

1. 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.
2. You can create a few snippets with various messages and send quick responses that way in just 3 clicks, Snippets/Select/Send.
3. You can create a new, buyer only Etsy account and keep all your purchases separate from your shop.

Number 3 is the easiest option, once your buyer account is set up it requires no ongoing maintenance and you never have to worry about messages from sellers interfering with your SS rating.

[CraftyCornishMaids]

reply to all new message threads, they are highlighted in blue, so you can't miss them

there are millions and millions of messages very day, the bots check them, to see if there was a reply, so just reply, like etsy says to

[BagmakerSupply]

@BonBonStore: "... message did not require any response." Unfortunately, rhe Star Seller program would disagree with you. As it says right on your Star Seller page, you need to reply to the FIRST message of EVERY NEW INCOMING THREAD 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.

Remember that the Star Seller metric is NOT all new messages but only the first message of all new incoming threads.

A controversial hack : if the unanswered new thread 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.

[BonBonStore]

Thank you