I didn’t receive the star seller badge last month (September) despite meeting all the criteria. Etsy marked my message response rate as 0%. I only received one message in September and responded the same day (straight away in fact). Has anyone else experienced this issue? Worried it will impact negatively on my Xmas sales.
As you have no badges you evidently didn't make the minimum 5 sales and $300 equivalent amount.
Did you look at the CSV download of the message stats? Are you aware that it applies to ALL messages (even for you as a buyer)?
@MIAOWTOPIA: First download the 'previous review period' CSV file to confirm which new Message thread Etsy thinks was not replied to (or marked as spam) within 24 hours.
"I only received one message in September ..." Star Seller uses data from the previous three months, so your October 1st star and badges were based on July, August and September.