Star Seller tag's unfair average score criteria

[#1]

In the evaluation of Star Seller between December 1, 2023 and February 29, 2024, I made 16 sales, which corresponds to almost 1/3 of my sales. I was able to get a review from 11 of these sales, which is a good rate with all my efforts, and in this period, 8 5 stars, 2 4 stars and 1 I received 3 stars, before this period my average was 4.9, but the 3 stars I received in this period brought my average down to 4.6 and in order to correct it to the criterion of 4.8, I needed to collect about 5 more 5-star reviews and this did not happen, I should point out that the total number of reviews is 16.

I could not reach this number of sales in a period covering 1/3 of my sales and I am losing my Star Seller tag because of only 1 3-star rating. If I had not sent thank you cards and thank you messages to the buyers, maybe I would not have received this star and I would have been able to protect my label. I have already been able to meet the requirement with 5 reviews for months and I do not ask for reviews from customers. It was not necessary, I think that the current evaluation conditions and rules make the sellers more reluctant to deal with the customers and ask their opinion after receiving the product, because I asked my customer for his opinion and after my message I received a 3-star evaluation and as you will appreciate, the sales of the stores that sell products at high values are not high in every period. And since it cannot be possible, I think that these evaluation criteria are not suitable for sellers like us and unfortunately their unfair aspects have emerged. Considering the development of different methods regarding this in the future will be very helpful to us.

[Venemask]

It could be like that, I don't have any information, probably I'm kicking it, yes, but I don't lose anything by writing my thoughts and unhappiness here, seeing people's thoughts and hoping that maybe it will work for Etsy, why shouldn't I do it? :')

[GlassyFields]

I think star seller is fundamentally flawed in many ways. When the SS program kicked off there were numerous threads about it.

I can think of all kinds of schemes, weighting, using longer time frames, correlating with value of the items, etc. All would be more complex to calculate and all also have some downsides or at least anomalies.

Perhaps the real problem is shops vary greatly and to really measure would require different rating sytems for different types of shops. 

I think the SS badges is more of a marketing gimmick than a real testament to customer service.

But I also think as sellers we are stuck with Etsy's SS system. Luckily, I've seen lots of posts in the forum saying they don't think it really matters.

[Marmalady]

I will be losing the Star Seller badge for March because I missed one message back in December.
The buyer had sent about a dozen messages over the course of a couple of hours whilst I was out of the house. Some of the messages were new threads, some in the existing threads, some were Help requests. I missed spotting one that was in a new thread.

Luckily that message will now drop out of the equation so I should regain Star seller status in April.

Is missing answering the message against the criteria ? Yes
Is it fair ? The line has to drawn somewhere
How do I feel? A bit peeved but *shrug*

[GlassyFields · Accepted solution]

shops with tons of sales and essentially good reviews will do better ... there are enough reviews to offset an occasional bad review. This could be because they are super shops, it could also be because they sell lots of low priced items, like some supply shops. 

shops with fewer sales and essentially good reviews, will have their star seller customer satisfaction badge tanked for 3 months by 1 bad review.  This could be because they're still getting discovered, selling niche items, in a very competitive market or selling super high end items. 

Fair? Probably not, but it's pretty hard to make the 2nd scenario fair because every review carries so much weight.

Using periods greater than 3 months might help simply by providing more data, but than that outlier bad review is going to hang around longer too.

I've tried to think of different scenarios and every one I can think of has pros and cons.

[Venemask]

For this to happen, stores must go through a certain process, for example, the store must reach a certain number of sales or reviews. As we fulfill the different requirements here, in the next stage we will reach the level of the stores you mentioned and the criteria will be balanced at a level that will affect us and them.

[PrimFun]

@Venemask   For March it goes to the 27th of Feb. Not the 29th.  28 and 29th will be included for April so any sales last two days don't count for the next month.

Etsy has to set the bar at some level.  They lowered it from 10 to 5.  My items vary in prices and I know I can always have a month or two where making 300 won't be met.  I just had to make peace with that.

[Venemask]

Yes, this is an example of what the system ultimately turns us into, and in a way, it sums up our affected situation. 

[WildRavenDesigns]

In my humble opinion, the Star Seller program does nothing, but create stress. Having been on it for a very long time and not meeting the criteria for the dollar amount this last month, because I am continually offering discount percentages with sales, I am relieved. I have always had a high customer service value and I can sell ten times the amount off ETSY that I do on ETSY. I have always answered messages immediately, worked with customers, given good deals and had good reviews. I really am so much happier not worrying about it. 

[FabioMcMustache · Accepted solution]

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