Is Etsy's Star Seller Program an eBay Copycat?

by: HappyOne

Oh boy a STAR (Just like preschool or kindergarten). Why not a few free listings or a FVF discount (Oh that might cost Etsy a few dollars). Maybe Etsy sellers can get some happy face stickers too?

by: The End

Etsy makes me want to hurl.
Etsy makes MY BUSINESS look bad.
It's almost litigious.
Any potential customers are really ignorant.
Looks like we're going to have to put Etsy down.

by: The End

Between Etsy and Ebay, there's a Grand Scheme to decimate OUR money supply.
They want us to live poorly while making THEM rich.
Not going to happen.
It's a war now.
It's on.

by: gyanarthi

so when this was at EBAY....how'd it help or hurt the sellers???

by: cybernetuk

For sellers who sell custom digital products, they need an option on the shipping page to say that it was 'emailed to the customer.'

by: CenTex

The stars program makes no difference to me, I take care of my customers, I want them to be happy with my product and service.  But I will tell you since May of 2020 my only goal is to let current and potential buyers know about my website.  I use Etsy as a way to market my goods, but offer so much more on my website.  

by: Tinysaur

As if we need another way to be punished, Etsy. I don't currently qualify because I don't respond to messages like ''thanks!'' It seems, you need to have the last word in every conversation, or you're not responsive enough for a Star Seller badge.

Either they can sell your stuff, or they can't. Everything else is treating us like livestock.

by: Rexford

FITURE DROPS IN SEARCH RESULTS

That's all you need to know folks. A star soumds like a good thing until you realize that you will choke on the carrot and get beaten with the stick.

More search manipulation by Etsy.  Little eBay lives.

by: Rexford

Sorry for the typos, texting without my specs.

by: Tinysaur

Also, the robot has dinged me several times for not shipping orders on a federal holiday. There's no accountability at this company to the people who bare the cost of overhead, inventory management, design and creation, fabrication, and fulfillment. Etsy really should get no say in how we do business, and maybe 2.5% since they do about as much as a credit card.

by: Ephemera Dealer

Here we go again. If you sell lower priced items that ship without tracking as I do, Etsy is going to punish you. They forced us into using free shipping (or get a lower response in Search), now they're going to try force us to ship everything with tracking. There's no way a $4 greeting card is going to get shipped with tracking if I have to roll the price into the cost of the card. Who is going to pay $7 for a greeting card?! And you know for sure those who aren't ''Star Sellers'' will be shoved down in the search algorithm. Dealing with these people is exhausting (and yes I should have my own website, thanks to everyone who's going to post that as a reply.)

by: The End

It really is not difficult.
Go Slowly , create your own glossary of terms you're not familiar with.
It will all come together :
Step 1....Name your business.
Step 2....Get your Business License.
Step 3....Find a good web host.
Step 4....Get web creation software.
Step 5....Set up your Business Emails. "Administrator" must be one of them.
Step 6....Get your SSL Certificate for eCommerce.
Step 7....Set up your Google Analytics account.
Step 8....Choose a shopping Cart.
Step 9....Choose a Payment Gateway and set it up.
Step 10..Make your FREE Google product listings !
Step 11..Now, thumb your nose at Ebay, Etsy, and Amazon :o)

by: Bob F

I was dinged for shipping two orders "late." The orders came in in July 3, a Saturday, so my normal shipping date of the next business day would have been Monday, July 5. BUT July 5 was a holiday, the Post Office was closed, and I shipped on the 6th. I should not be penalized because no one at Etsy was apparently aware of the Federal holiday.

by: fusgeyer

This Star Stellar is a farce. My shop should qualify, but because my customers normally do not contact me, I do not have a response rate rating. My listings are clear, photos are clear, items are not customized, and I keep my customers informed during the order processing (order recieved, order shipped, order delivered, TQ for your review). Most never respond unless there is an issue. Maybe I just need to be less -- which goes against my nature -- so that customers will contact me with questions because they do not understand something in the listing. Really -- I have no intention of doing that.

This is a way for Etsy to try to force shops that do not qualify into buying ads to make up for the potential ding in search results by not qualifying for this program. More and more I am really considering just using Etsy as a way to push sales to my stand alone shop. At 20 cents per listing per quarter, from an advertising standpoint, it is cheap.

by: Resonant1

>"Bob F - I should not be penalized because no one at Etsy was apparently aware of the Federal holiday."<

Yes, and this is a larger danger point. It's worse than just holidays. Etsy has never recognized in their site programming that Sunday is not a valid shipping day. That was a mere annoyance before and not a problem until now when they are going to use their programming failure against sellers. I checked my score for on time shipping and I had 3 late ships out of 95 on time. I downloaded the report and found that all three were sold on a Friday evening and Etsy set the expected ship day as Sunday. Of course, I cannot ship on Sunday so the label purchased on Etsy on Sunday set the actual ship date as Monday. Presto! A late shipping ding.

Be aware of this and do whatever you can to set the ship actual date to Saturday or Sunday even if you don't drop off the package on those days.

It's okay for Etsy to have programs like this, but if they are going to do it they need to update their site to correctly support it.

by: fusgeyer

The best way to avoid shipping dings is to give yourself a much longer lead time than you need. I have mine set to 7 days longer than I normally need. This way I never get dinged on a late shipment.  

by: ShortSeller

Otherwise known as herding their Chinese seller base.

by: regina

What I care about is what directly affects my etsy business- this does not.  It’s trivial as far as I concerned.   I’m too busy trying to decipher my etsy customer’s custom and /or personalized orders.  Because Etsy dubiously offers customers a measly two (yes only 2) custom dropdown-menu options.   Meanwhile, Amazon Handmade gets it right- for example, at Amazon Handmde, I have a BEST SELLER in the top 100 that  has 7 options, aka 7 dropdown menu selections.  Meanwhile, over on Etsy, I’m stressfully going back and forth with customers because I’m trying to decipher their written instructions, and I’m emailing my customers, because they left in the notes to do something we DON’T even offer.  It’s a cluster fxch at Etsy in regards to custom orders (ex: colors selections in several areas, cool and appealing upgrade options, pay extra for options like personalized on front, and/or personalized on back,...). Many of the most awesome products are complex, however etsy is still back in the dark ages, because ETSY OFFERS ONLY TWO DROP DOWN MENU SELECTIONS.  An easy fix, yet today that lack of innovation is chintzy, embarrassing, and cost me money.

by: ShortSeller

Etsy isn't a tech company. It sucks all these marketplace are incompetent and just outsource the whole damn operation.

by: 1 Angry Artist

Yet another way to punish the sellers, the geese that keep laying the golden eggs.

I just noticed the new orange star and my head felt like it was going to explode.  Whenever these clowns come up with something new, you know it's nothing but heartache.

I have 2 shops and in both of them they got all the info WRONG.  I mean REALLY wrong on every metric.

Yet it seems that in typical Etsy fashion, there is no one to call, nowhere to go to straighten out this mess.     So I imagine that now they will use that as an excuse to further hide my listings.

Like someone else said, it seems like a lot of the stuff these creeps do is borderline or actually illegal.  

Yet they keep making money hand over fist.  Just wish I had bought stock in the beginning.  Now that would have been a money maker.