Star seller

[byElleBowtique]

I didn’t receive star seller for November because I didn’t receive the speedy reply badge due to not replying to a seller I had personally purchased from. It was a generic email after purchasing a digital download saying let me know if you have any questions on how to retrieve your download for my son’s birthday invite. How is this able to affect me when it’s a message from a seller I personally purchased from and not from a buyer that purchased from me? 

[UniqueGiftOrnaments]

The star seller clearly states that ALL messages must be answered or put into spam.

[BagmakerSupply · Accepted solution]

@byElleBowtique: "How is this able to affect me when it’s a message from a seller ..." Because Etsy says so. As it says right on your Star Seller page and elsewhere, you need to reply to the FIRST message of EVERY NEW INCOMING THREAD within 24 hours. It does not matter who sent it, the subject matter, if it is a duplicate or blank or anything else. If it is SPAM then it should be marked as such.

The Star Seller metric for messages is very binary and simplistic - either you replied to (or marked as SPAM) that first message of a new incoming thread within 24 hours or you did not.

A controversial workaround : if the unanswered new thread is not a Help Request, at least for the time being, it appears that marking an unanswered message as SPAM (even after the 24 hour deadline has passed) will cause your reply percentage to change in a day or two if the original message was within the current star seller period (but not retroactively). Note that subsequent messages from that account may go directly to the SPAM folder.