Star seller and custom orders

[GoodLuckFox]

My star seller response was dinged because I only responded to someone with a custom order (that was requested in person). 

This is incredibly frustrating because custom order responses are not counted as responses. 

Additionally I’ve received several messages in the past few days and my star seller data for the upcoming review period has not updated. One of those messages was not from a previous conversation.

Anyone else experiencing/experienced this issue?

any recommendations?

Thanks so much for any help

[audreytherese]

You're post doesn't make sense. I don't understand what you mean by custom order responses aren't counted as responses. Do you mean that someone requested a custom order, so you created a listing, but didn't actually respond to them? If that's the case, that's your error. If someone sends me a message asking for a custom request I will respond to the message and say yes, please watch for the custom listing. Because no, just creating the listing doesn't satisfy the response requirement. Just like if someone requests a cancellation, cancelling alone doesn't satisfy the requirement. You have to actually respond to the inquiries, not just do what they ask. Etsy isn't checking if you followed through on their request, they're only looking to see if there was specifically a response to the message. 

[GoodLuckFox]

From my messages with Support, they have stated “Please be informed that all incoming message threads, including custom listings, contribute to your Response Rate.”

So it doesn’t quite make sense why, if sending a custom listing counts as a response, that it would then consider the message thread to not have been responded to.

[RandysExoticWoods]

I don't think that sending a custom listing counts as a response. I think you have to type something into the message thread (not on the custom listing form) and then hit the reply/send button for it to count as a response.

Poorly designed program, but that is what we have to deal with unless they fix these kind of issues

[PillowDetails]

Yes, I've seen this happen - I know what you mean.  Even though the Custom order set up through messages shows the link, and Etsy sends a message to the Buyer, you still need to respond to the message - "ok, here you go -let me know if you have any questions".