Star Seller Status Requirement Unfair and Nonsensical

[#1]

I am a newer seller to Etsy and the way the Star Seller Status is measured makes absolutely no sense to me. The metrics are completely off. I have had excellent customer service as a seller and have worked very hard at this as a newer seller. My scores have been high until I made a purchase from another etsy seller. Apparently the seller sent an auto reply message to my inbox saying "Thank you for your purchase.... and if you need assistance contact me". I saw the message, but didn't reply as I didn't need help two seconds after purchasing my item. Later, I had questions and reached out and had a wonderful exchange with the seller.

So, March 1 rolls around and my score for customer service goes down to 83%. Apparently because I did not reply or (know about auto reply at the time). I think this is very unfair as I am the customer in this situation and not the seller. In no way does this represent my customer service skills as a seller. I really think this metric should be reconsidered as it is unfair to me as a seller. I don't think I will be making any purchases from Etsy if I am going to be punished for it and have my shop negatively affected.

[AutumnHollowStudio]

Unless you anticipate listing something very soon for this customer, you should ship their order asap. Or, extend your processing time by a few days.

Not only will that hurt your shipping metric for star seller, but it *may* cause Etsy to put a temporary payment reserve on your account as well until you are "caught up".

[VintageSnippets]

I agree that Star Seller Status is a bunch of nonsense. This program reminds a lot of us of the little gold stars we got in elementary school for being good. In my opinion, Etsy punishes its best sellers for picky little things by taking away their Star Seller Status for not one month, but three months!!  And over what?  Not replying to a thank you.?  If that isn't ridiculous, then I don't know what is.  Maybe Etsy could spend their time doing something more worthwhile to help us sellers actually sell.

[PieceByNumberQuilts]

A Star Seller badge isn’t any magic ticket to Etsy success, and not having it will not kill your shop. Star Sellers get no special perks. As others have said, it would be better to work on getting the shipping up to expectations than to worry about a missed message.  

While I’ve been pleased to qualify most of the time the program’s been in place (because let’s face it, some of it down to luck), I didn’t notice any difference in visits or sales when I didn’t have the badge.  Some sellers even swear that having the badge is a pox, LOL. So try to put it into perspective.

[BagmakerSupply]

@TandemElementsShop @PetandWildlifeGifts : This advice may now be outdated because according to Etsy "You won’t receive any new messages from that member, and they’ll be unable to reply to messages in an existing thread." https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000343128-How-to-Handle-Scams-and-Suspicious-Messages