Star seller tracking BUG

[ButterflyBerryDesign]

In order to meet the star seller criteria of shipping all items with tracking, I've discounted items that cannot be sent with tracking to fall below the AUD$15. However the calculation of star seller takes the item price before discount was applied! This is not correct, if a buyer placed an order for AUD$14 I should not have to ship it tracked. 

[BagmakerSupply]

@ButterflyBerryDesign When you say "discount", did you actually change (lower) the price or did you put them on sale?

[ButterflyBerryDesign]

I put them on sale. To get the Star Seller badge it states "You only need tracking for orders that are AU$15 or more.", so in my understanding any order below that threshold should not require tracking.

[BagmakerSupply]

@ButterflyBerryDesign I cannot speak for Australia and I am not giving legal or financial advice, but in many jurisdictions, if you sell an $20.00 item with a $10.00 off coupon, you still have $20.00 in income, you owe sales tax on $20.00, and the $10.00 coupon comes off as a deduction at the bottom of the financial calculation as an expense just like your cost of goods, etc. Just look at your Etsy transaction and you will see that the coupon is deducted after the item(s) total. The US instructions state: "If you’re a US seller with an order shipping to a US buyer, a tracking number may be required if that order is at least $10 USD (excluding shipping, taxes, gift wrap, and discounts)" and I suspect the Australian instructions are similar. So using the example, this would be a $20.00 order not a $10.00 order in Etsy's eyes. For what you want to accomplish, you need to reduce the actual price.

[ButterflyBerryDesign]

Thanks for explaining that! There must be some difference between US and AU then.

I don't see those instructions for Australia, the only thing I can find is "orders below AU$15", with no further information on what that total means.

However, if I sell an item of $20 with $50% discount, Etsy will notify me of a sale of $10 and show an order total and sales of $10. And the discount is deducted before items total for me! 

It looks like this:

Item total $20

Discount -$10

Order total $10

Therefore my understanding was that if the Order Total is below their AU$15 threshold it should not require tracking. 

Thanks for explaining how it works in US, I assume Etsy has just copied the same approach to Australia then. I'll keep it in mind next time I'm shipping a low value item! 

[HtoHdesign · Accepted solution]

Hey There!

For the tracking requirement, we calculate using the total value of the items purchased before any discounts, not including shipping or taxes. We understand there are things that can impact your score that might be out of your control, and/or mistakes can happen. We have taken this into account making the percentage reach 95% instead of 100%.

Thanks!

[CappuccinoLace]

@HtoHdesign  If this is the case, then change the wording/add an explanation to the help article on star seller.

You're misleading sellers.

"Orders of a certain value" is not the same as item value before discounts/shipping.

[BagmakerSupply]

It may very well be that Etsy has just adopted one set of rules for everywhere, but I also suspect that it is a poor wording problem which seems to happen regularly. I think what Etsy means is ITEM TOTAL not order total.

[SunnytyDE]

@HtoHdesign yes, Etsy needs to change the wording on that to make it clear that discounts are not being applied to the star seller tracking metric. 
@ButterflyBerryDesign  it’s the same way as when you fill out a customs form. The actual price before any discounts is being applied. Etsy does not make this very clear. 

[ManchesterStampingCo]

Can someone please explain this as I have had star seller rejected because it says I haven't tracked 5 items. However looking at the breakdown of all orders, all 5 have tracking numbers and are all were shipped well before the due date. All 5 items were £5.00 each but why would this exclude the fact that they have all been tracked and now I feel like I'm being penalised for selling cheaper gift items? 

[BagmakerSupply]

If a package has valid tracking, the value of the order is irrelevant. Based on other threads in this forum there appear to be issues with Royal Mail (if that is what you are using) and Etsy's third party tracking vendor. If the shipper is supported by Etsy make sure that the shipped date, tracking number and shipping company show correctly on the actual order. What shipping status does the actual order show? When did you ship? Our experience is that the CSV file is often behind reality.

[ManchesterStampingCo]

Thank you, it is Royal Mail as Etsy shipping is twice as expensive! They are all showing the tracking number and have all been received but only on all my £5.00 orders it says they haven't been tracked