Star Seller Status is Incorrect

[NewDesignConcepts]

I’m being denied Star Seller because of a personal conversation and not an order. A customer has been sick and I messaged her first to ask her how she’s been doing. She never contacted me to buy anything. She did purchase back in January but not in March. It’s listed as me not responding to a person named “M”, which is Marilee. It had nothing to do with a sale and now it’s affecting my response time. Heck, I contacted her! I should be at 100% response time and not 80%! I should qualify now as a Star Seller. I’m so good with my customers, getting back to them quickly and speaking with them to get to know them so much better! My amount of repeat customers is high and there’s a good reason for that. I have a system that pays off due to my attention and generosity. I’d like my message from “M” reviewed, please.

Thank you, Carolyn Young — owner, New Design Concepts, qualified for “Star Seller”.

[Former_Member]

It doesn't matter if it's a personal message.  The system cannot tell what the message is about.  You need to reply to all initial messages or mark them as spam.

[TravelsRemembered]

This happened to me as well - it was a shipping status update on an order I purchased. So I didn't open it within 24 hours and therefore lost my status. It's unfortunate that messages cannot be differentiated. Hopefully that's something that can be fixed in the future. 

[UppNorthEh]

mark it as spam and it will be fixed.  no waiting for the future.

[TravelsRemembered]

If I mark it as spam will it harm/ding the seller it came from at all?

[NoFrogsAllowed]

@TravelsRemembered 

There is nothing to fix.  That is the way it is set up to work.

[audreytherese]

There is no 'fix' to your problem, at least not on Etsy's end. The 'fix' is creating a separate account, one for all your purchases that is separate from your selling account. If you had a separate account for making purchases, then the message you received about an order would go to that account, and would not affect your selling account. But you are using the same account for both buying and selling, and it's most likely that the seller is doing the same thing, which means they could potentially be messaging you about something in your shop.  Without a separate account, there's no way for the system to know the difference. 

[UppNorthEh]

If you contacted her did she respond in a new message?  If not, then it must be referring to another message.  You can look down your message list and see which one doesn't have a response.  Even if you had the Message badge it wouldn't matter because you don't have either of the other two.  You can always mark an unanswered message as spam.  The star seller status will update on June 1.  

[bradgoodell · Accepted solution]

Etsy says "All new messages", and means it. Ever since Star Seller was introduced, Etsy was clear about it.  No one reads the messages and judges if they are buyer to seller, seller to buyer, or friend to friend.  All new messages require a response or sent to spam. 

Sorry you were blindsided by this.