Last week Etsy announced to sellers that they would begin a new program on September 1, the Star Seller Program.
Customer service is an important part of a marketplace like Etsy which is comprised of millions of people selling their goods. When Etsy started it was a wonderful place for artisans, crafters, makers, creatives, and vintage lovers, to sell their products. It has been a blessing to me all these years.
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It was a wonderful and friendly platform that filled a big need in the creative community
It was a wonderful and friendly platform that filled a big need in the creative community.
Then it got a new CEO, went public and lots of things changed. The seller, the backbone of their company, was no longer important. Making money and pleasing investors became more important.
They rolled out many changes, the latest being the Star Seller Program
The Star Seller Program
When I first learned about the Star Seller Program I thought it was a great idea!! It was all about serving the customer and serving them well. My philosophy is “Lots of people can sell pottery like mine, Customer service will set me apart”
“Lots of people can sell pottery like mine, Customer service will set me apart”
They would be rating us on Shipping when we say we will ship, answering you when you message us, and the reviews you leave us. Their star seller target is 95% in each of those categories.
Great, I thought!! I ship really quickly, I answer all my messages right away and I have 138 reviews with the average being 5 Star!
I will NAIL this.
Except I didn’t….. WHAT?
What the heck happened? Let’s have a look
I was perfect for shipping and message response but my Review was at 88%. When I dove farther into that I found that Etsy is looking at the past 3 months.
In that time I received 8 reviews…Seven of them were 5-Star and one was a 4-Star. Personally, I don’t think a 4-Star Review is a bad review because after all, no one is perfect!!
But when I did the math, I had seven 5-star reviews out of eight reviews. 7 divided by 8 is 88%. Yeap, that one 4-Star review knocked me right out of the ballpark. In the next week, I received 2 more 5-star reviews. This brought me up to 90%.
In Etsy’s Star Sellers Eyes, a 4-star review is given the same weight as a 1-star review.
Working backward; because of that one 4-star review I will need a total of 21 reviews over the course of three months to earn the Star Seller badge. I have three more weeks to get 11 more reviews. Since Esty’s rates you for the previous 3 months and that 4-star review came in July, It won’t fall off until November!!
It’s not going to happen because this is a slow time for me and people don’t always leave reviews.
I could let this discourage me but I won’t because I KNOW I AM A STAR SELLER even if Etsy doesn’t!!
But if you are reading this and you have purchased something from any seller on Etsy in the last few months, go give them a review.
My name is Dani and I am the potter behind this page! I am retired and having a ball being the artist I always wanted to be. My studio is located in NW Arkansas where I live a quiet life, on a lake with my husband, 3 dogs and two cats.
Have a look around!
Phone Arm for Overhead Videos
I bought this so that I could record video while I am making stuff. It works great. The arm attaches to the table with a thumb screw. The part that holds your phone is spring loaded and almost too strong of a spring. I pinch my fingers a lot but I know the phone won't fall out into my clay water!!
View on Amazon
Nikon D3500
A few years back I decided to up my online game by taking better photos. At the time Nikon offered the D3400. I never regretted that purchase. It's a lower-end Nikon but has some great features. One of my favorite features is that the camera connects via Bluetooth to my phone which I have set up to automatically upload to Google Photos so they are easy to download to my PC or adjust on my phone and upload to Etsy.
Check it out on Amazon
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In our ‘busy’ daily activities, some of my customers take the time out of their schedule to give my shop a glowing review of the product that they purchased from my shop. And they assign a four star to the purchase. They certainly feel that they are supporting my family run small business, but, in fact, they are getting my shop punished by Etsy. Maybe the young marketing genius at Esty should come out of their ivory tower and live in the real world with all of us shop owners.
Exactly this. I consider a 4 star a good review! Sometimes these help us grow as well citing something we may not be aware of. This program hasn’t been well thought out and just before the holiday season it could be a problem.
Oh yeah. I had the same thoughts when reading about the star seller program earlier this week. It’s once again proof that Esty is not built for sellers who don’t have dozens of sales each week. I am like you – great ratings on messaging and shipping. I’m likely never to reach their levels even with more sales because I, as an assemblage artist, spend hours on most of my artwork. Even the 4″ work takes an hour or two. I’m thrilled with five sales a month and that represents many many hours of work. I’m not enthused about a new program that rewards those that sell a lot more than I do which usually isn’t all that original.
Etsy is definitely not a good platform for the One of a Kind Artist. We will never fit in with their algorithm. But their selling platform is easy, functional and trustworthy.
You are a STAR SELLER In my eyes!
Ohhh – thank you Dani!
Etsy better change their ways or the backbone of their business will leave to another site. Undercutting what made them great will come back to haunt them! Well said!
There is a lot of grumbling about this because the standards are so high. In a way, thats a good thing. I am in a lot of Etsy groups where the conversations are not Customer Service friendly. Many Etsy shoppers judge ALL Etsy sellers by one bad shop experience. Better customer service all around will help us all in the long run.
I am so tired of stressing out from one bad review throwing me down to 93%. The review was completely unfair and out of control. My four star reviews are making me feel unworthy and like they’re”bad” when in my customers eyes, a 4 was a great review, but I’m still getting punished by Etsy bringing my score down. How in the world do they expect us to be perfect and get only 5 stars without selling hundreds of items a month. Just extremely unfair in my opinion. No one is perfect and we should get “punished” for getting 4 star reviews!!!!
I completely agree with you Virginia. I was in the same boat. A more realistic way to do the star seller review part would be to grade each of the levels. A four star review, which is great in my mimd, should not be at the same level as a one star.
This is one aspect of the Star Seller rating that has failed.