You are perfectly right that Etsy should provide for local pickups. Since they do not, sellers have to find a workaround in order to maintain Star Seller.
There are a couple of ways to do this:
1. If you did not know about the order beforehand, then hand deliver the item and send a thank you note or a receipt using Etsy Shipping. Send this by the ship by date. You will use the Letter Mail option which costs the same as a stamp, and does not have real tracking, but is considered by Etsy as sufficient for Star Seller. You will have to adjust your package dimensions to letter size plus less than .5 inch depth in order to have that option appear.
OR:
2. If you know about the order beforehand, you can make a digital download listing by uploading an image or PDF file that specifies the item and the pickup date for the downloadable file. Use a picture of the item and put RESERVED as the title. Enter the price and select free shipping. Send the customer a link to that listing and when they purchase, that is your order. Digital downloads do not affect star seller.
@CookedGlassCreations: There is no evidence that being (or not being) a Star Seller has any effect on a shop's sales. Etsy is test and data driven and if they could prove that being a Star Seller increased your sales they would be shouting it from the proverbial rooftops.
@Rtisticdesignz: "I have tracking numbers but it says I’m missing one" What happens if you click on the tracking number link on the actual order? If it opens the courier's tracking page and shows the scan history then you have proof that the tracking information was entered correctly. In that case you should pursue it - while Etsy will not manually adjust Star Seller stats they can, in some cases, fix the underlying data and then the Star Seller stats will auto update (but not retroactively).
If that does not work, and if the shipping company is supported by Etsy make sure that the shipped date, tracking number and shipping company show correctly on the actual order. Etsy relies on a third party vendor for tracking (and tracking number validation) and uses the data on the order.
This is a very very old thread and if you are still having an issue you should start a new one.
The issue is a bit more complex that just confirming that Tracking is showing on the Carrier's site and in Etsy Order updates.
The information re Tracking comes from different sources for different Etsy functions.
For SSP, Etsy relies on the "Aftership" database to automatically check Tracking information.
Not all Carriers and not all classes of shipping for any one Carrier are registered on "Aftership", even though they may register correctly on the Carrier/s website
Edited: Apologies, this is an old thread. Sorry for contributing to the "resurrection"
