What are Etsy's Customer Service Standards?

Great customer service helps you build trust with buyers and keep them coming back. As a seller on Etsy, you’re expected to meet our Service Level Standards, as outlined in our Seller Policy. This includes meeting our customer service standards in four key areas: 

  • Message response rate
  • On-time shipping & tracking
  • Average review rating
  • Case rate

Meeting these standards will give buyers a positive experience, and help you avoid lower search visibility on Etsy. If you consistently go above and beyond these standards, you may be eligible to earn Star Seller badges

Repeat violations of these standards may result in temporary or permanent suspension of your selling privileges on Etsy.

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How to track your customer service stats

Once you’ve made at least 5 sales in the last three months, you'll see your progress towards meeting our customer service standards on the Customer service stats page:

  1. Sign in to Etsy.com and go to Shop Manager.
  2. Select the Customer service stats page.
  3. You’ll see your Customer service stats which refresh daily, as well as a monthly overview of your customer service performance at the top of the page.   

You can also access your stats from the home page of the Etsy Seller app.

The overview at the top of the page refreshes on the first of every month. This lets you know if you’re meeting our customer service standards or have earned any Star Seller badges. 

In the Track your daily progress section, check how you’re doing in each key area and see where there may be opportunities for improvement. These stats are refreshed every 24 hours. 

Message response rate

Buyers use Etsy Messages to communicate with sellers about potential or existing orders, and responding in a timely manner can help create a reliable shopping experience. 

You need to respond to 80% of first messages in a thread within the first 48 hours to meet the message response rate standard. 

The following aren’t factored into your Message response rate stat:

  • Ongoing conversations after the first message in a new thread
  • Messages you report as spam
  • Messages from Etsy that appear in your “From Etsy” folder 
  • Messages outside the current review period 

Keep in mind auto-replies count as a first message. Also, marking the first message in a new thread as unread won’t count a message as new again.

Learn more about communicating with buyers through Etsy Messages.

Average review rating

Buyers can use Etsy’s five-star review system to review their purchases from your shop. Star ratings of 4 or 5 help attract new buyers and keep them coming back to your shop.

If you have less than 40 reviews, no more than 4 reviews should be 3 stars or less. If you have more than 40 reviews, less than 10% of your reviews should be 3 stars or less. 

Etsy can sometimes remove negative reviews that don’t follow Etsy’s policies. For example, reviews about something out of your control, like a carrier delay. Learn more about how to handle negative reviews

Case rate

Cases are how a buyer indicates they have an unresolved issue with their order. They can only be opened if:

  • The buyer has already attempted to resolve the issue with you through Etsy Messages

  • An order's estimated delivery date (if applicable) or processing time and/or “ship by” date have passed

The outcome of each case is determined by a variety of factors as laid out in our Cases Policy.

To meet the case rate standard, we only look at cases opened by buyers where a refund was taken from your Payment account. If you’ve completed less than 300 orders, no more than 3 orders should have cases refunded from your account. If you’ve completed 300+ orders, less than 1% of cases should be refunded from your account. 

Not all cases will count against you or reflect negatively on your shop. This stat doesn’t include:

Learn more about cases on Etsy.

On-time shipping

On-time shipping means that orders were shipped according to the processing times you set in your listing description. At least 80% of your orders need to ship on time to meet the on-time shipping standard. 

It’s always a best practice to add tracking when you can, but it’s not required to meet this standard. You will need to add tracking on eligible orders to earn Star Seller badges.

Your on-time shipping & tracking stat shows the percentage of orders that were: 

  • Marked as complete by your expected ship date 
  • Included a processing time
  • Had a tracking number or shipping label purchased on Etsy (only required for Star Seller)

This stat doesn’t include:

  • Carrier delays
  • Digital orders (must be listed as digital items)
  • Canceled orders
  • Orders with ship dates outside of the current review period (it may take up to 24 hours for info to update)

In some countries, you only need to include tracking on orders above a certain value. If you combine two orders, add the same tracking info to both. 

What happens if I don’t meet the customer service standards?

If you fall short of one or more of these standards, you risk lowering your search visibility. 

On-time shipping isn’t currently factored into search placement, but it’s key to providing a great customer experience and part of our Service Level Standards within our Seller Policy

If you are repeatedly failing to meet the standard for case rate, your selling privileges may be temporarily or permanently revoked.  

Check out our seller handbook article on customer service to learn more.

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