Star Seller removed.

[MrWolfClocks]

Hi. I've been a star seller for a while, but recently had a message from Etsy saying I shouldn't be, and it was removed owing to my quick message replies being under 95%. 

I've only been late with one reply to a first customer reach-out in months, when I was ill, but the percentage constantly drops - it's just gone down again from 93%  to 87%.

Would really appreciate any help. Thanks, Nic

[PillowDetails]

Wow, what a wonderful shop!  It's simple math, with the percentages - if you don't have very many messages to begin with, that you responded to promptly, that one you were late to respond to is a bigger percentage over the 3-month review period.

That is out of our control, isn't it?  How many Buyers need to contact us - I would think it means that we have excellent listings that provide all the information necessary.  The  Star Seller program has many shortcomings such as this, and I think you will find it find not affect your sales or traffic at all.

[MrWolfClocks]

Hi. Sorry, I couldnt find my way back here last night!

Thanks for the kind words and help.

What you say makes sense of course. I couldn't see the maths behind why the 24 hour reply % was going down, and getting the message from Etsy saying they'd awarded Star Seller by mistake added to my thinking there was something going awry.

As you say, the Star doesn't seem to make much difference to sales and I've plenty of really lovely reviews.

Thanks again. Nic

[WhatADesignUS · Accepted solution]

Hello! You can create automated responses to prevent your message rate from dropping. There may not be much you can do at the moment, but it's a suggestion for maintaining your message rate in the future
https://help.etsy.com/hc/en-us/articles/115015654988-How-to-Send-Messages-to-Buyers?segment=selling

[MrWolfClocks]

Hi, sorry, couldn't find my way back here last night!

I don't usually have a problem replying immediately, but will set an automated reply, just in case.

Thanks for your help. Nic

[BARN29]

Some advice in another thread was to mark the message as spam if you couldn´t answer fast enough -> This should remove it from counting.

In general it´s very hard if you missed one and have only a low amount of messages... Was a learning curve for us also to answer to each and every message, even if it´s only a "TY for your message - We are getting in touch soon" reply to ensure the count for the star seller.

[MrWolfClocks]

Hi, sorry, couldn't find my way back here last night.

Thanks for your advice. I do usually do at least a quick reply as soon as I get a message, it was only one I missed in months as I was suddenly unwell. As you say, when you don't get a million messages, one makes a big difference to the maths.

Thanks again, Nic