Star Seller Stats - Calulated on messages from before I opened my shop

[MERISTEMco]

I'm a new Etsy business owner, and I have only received one message so far directly to my shop.   I have received other Etsy messages in the past (as a personal Etsy shopper) that I haven't always responded to (before ever opening my shop).  For example, I gave a shop a positive review one time, and the owner sent me a message that said "You are so kind <3" - no response warranted... but now the fact that I didn't reply to that personal message is penalizing me as a shop owner for my Star Seller stats. Anyone have any advice?  I wish I could contact someone at Etsy but I can't figure out how.

[CappuccinoLace]

If those messages were in the review period of Sept, Oct, Nov, then yes they will count.

[BagmakerSupply · Accepted solution]

@MERISTEMco: Probably everyone in this forum can sympathize with you but a quick search would show you the innumerable threads about the exact same issue in this forum and that you are not being penalized.

The Star Seller metric is that the FIRST message of a NEW thread must be replied to 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. Those have always been the rules.

Subsequent messages from the same account (a buyer may have multiple accounts) are supposed to be combined into a single thread. Etsy is now putting a blue text warning / advisory on those messages they consider to be a "new message" but should semantically be called a "new thread".

Help Requests always start a new thread.

If you are creating a custom listing based on a new thread, you still need to reply to the message.

Cancellation requests in a new thread must be replied to in the actual message - replies using the cancellation form do not count as a response.

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. Note that subsequent messages from that account may go directly to the SPAM folder.

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

[BootifulLabels]

If you have only recently opened your shop you will not be eligible for Star Seller until you have been selling for 90 days.  It won't matter that these messages are counting against you now, because they will drop out of the calculation before you become eligible anyway.  Just concentrate on getting things right from now on.