Star Seller Reviews

[DeesCreativeTouches]

Why are spam emails being included in the Star Seller Review. Obviously I am not going to reply to a scam email at all which has dropped my profile down to 20% from 100%. Plus I understood that only the first email had to be within 24hours, but it appears that for months now every single mail is counted. Sometimes if a customer asks for a customized item it may take more than 24hours to research special requests and work out costings etc. I always reply to the first email quickly but it appears that I am being penalized for giving good customer service and being thorough and truthful. Could this please be looked into and rectified.

[BloemSewingPatterns]

Hello,

You are posting in a public sellers forum. If you want to write to Etsy support directly, you have to use the 'Contact us' button on your dashboard.

If you receive spam, you have to mark them as spam immediately, that way they are not counted in the Star Seller program.
The second thing you can do is set an auto-reply message for when you are not able to reply. For instance, I have an auto-reply between 6pm and 10 am. You can set the auto-reply when you click the link 'Messages' with the options in the upper right. There are two options, either a reply for 5 days, or a daily reply.

Hope this helps.

[BootifulLabels]

You don't have to reply to spam messages, but you can't just ignore them.  You have to mark them as spam so that the automated system knows not to count them.

You don't have to answer every message in thread, just the first.  If a buyer keeps the conversation going within the same thread only a reply to the first message is needed.  But if the buyer is new, they may have difficulty working out how to reply, and start a new message each time they need to add information.  If this happens, you need to reply to the first message in each thread.

No-one reads your messages, the system simply looks at the time stamps for receipt and response to determine if you answered on time.  

[JJewellerySuppliesUK]

You have to operate within the parameters of the Star Seller program which is automated and there are no exceptions nor adjustments made.

Mark the spam messages as spam and your score may recalculate in the next few days.

How to Become a Star Seller – Etsy

[mommawhazelsquilts]

@BloemSewingPatterns  As far as requests for itemized items go, you don't have to wait until you do the research to respond.  In cases like that, I respond with "Will get back to you."  That will work every time.

[BloemSewingPatterns]

@mommawhazelsquilts 

I don't think your reply is for me.

[BagmakerSupply]

@DeesCreativeTouches: "Why are spam emails being included in the Star Seller ..." eMails are not counted for Star Seller, only Etsy Messages. The Star Seller metric for messages is very simplistic and binary - either you replied to (or marked as SPAM) that first message of a new incoming thread within 24 hours or you did not.

"... it appears that for months now every single mail is counted." Have you checked the applicable CSV file available on your Star Seller page to see which new Message threads Etsy thinks were unanswered or answered late? When you look at the file remember that that the dates / times are in UTC (not your time zone), only the first message of a new incoming thread is included (all that counts for Star Seller), and usually a new incoming thread is not included until after the 24 hour reply window has passed regardless of when you replied. Star Seller stats (and the CSV file) seem to be updated only once per day so there may be an additional day's delay. There is also a link to the actual message thread so you can verify if the data is correct or not. Keep in mind that the Star Seller metric is NOT all new messages but only the first message of all new incoming threads.