How to Become a Star Seller

Quick answer

Star Seller eligibility is reviewed on the 1st of every month. If you meet the criteria, it may take up to 24 hours for your badge to appear on your shop and Star Seller dashboard.

The Star Seller badge is our way of recognizing sellers with a proven record of providing stellar customer service. When you become a Star Seller, we’ll show buyers the badge on your shop, so they know you go above and beyond for your customers.

Star Seller eligibility is reviewed on the 1st of every month based on your customer service stats over the past three months. 

To be eligible to become a Star Seller you need to first meet our minimum customer service standards for case rate, and have certain order and sales criteria. You also need to meet higher standards for:

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

If you have feedback about Star Seller, please let us know by filling out our survey.  

Etsy Support can’t make changes to your Star Seller data or manually award Star Seller badges. If you think your Star Seller score was calculated incorrectly, you can let us know in the Technical Issues forum.

Read more about Star Seller in our Star Seller Terms and Conditions.

How your shop is evaluated for the Star Seller badge

You’ll be eligible to become a Star Seller starting 90 days after your first sale – as long as you’ve met our customer service standards for the month, and received at least 5 orders and $300 in sales over the past three months.

How often will my shop be evaluated? 

Star Seller eligibility will be reviewed on the 1st of every month. It may take up to 24 hours for your badge to appear on your shop and Star Seller dashboard.

What time period is my shop being evaluated for?

When evaluating shops for Star Seller, we’ll look at the last 3 months of data prior to the review date.

Does a Star Seller badge affect my search ranking?

Star Seller badges do not directly impact your search ranking. However, Star Seller badges will make it easier for buyers to identify and shop from Star Sellers. Learn more about how search works. 

How do Star Seller metrics compare to customer service standards? 

Etsy’s customer service standards must be met at a minimum by all sellers on the platform. Not maintaining these standards may lower your search visibility, and impact your shop or account status, as outlined in our Seller Policy

To become a Star Seller, you just need to meet the standard for case rate and consistently reach the Star Seller targets for message response rate, on-time shipping & tracking, and average review rating. 

View the difference between our customer service standards and the targets needed to achieve Star Seller status below. Learn more about the requirements for Etsy’s customer service standards.

Customer service standards  Star Seller metrics
Message response rate: Reply to 80% of first messages in a thread within 24–48 hours Message response rate: Reply to 95% of first messages in a thread within 24 hours
On-time shipping & tracking: At least 80% of orders ship on time On-time shipping & tracking: 95% of orders ship on time, with valid tracking or a shipping label purchased on Etsy (when required)

Average review rating

  • If you have <40 reviews, no more than 4 reviews can have a rating of 3 or lower
  • If you have 40+ reviews, <10% of reviews can have a rating of 3 or lower
Average review rating: 4.8+

Case Rate:

  • If you’ve completed <300 orders, no more than 3 orders can have cases refunded from your Payment account 
  • If you’ve completed 300+ orders, less than 1% of cases can be refunded from your Payment account

 

Case Rate: Meet customer service standard

 

How to track your progress toward becoming a Star Seller

You can see how close you are to earning Star Seller on your Customer service stats page: 

  1. Sign in to Etsy.com and go to Shop Manager.
  2. Select the Customer service stats tab.
  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.

Using this dashboard, you can track your daily progress across all the areas related to delivering stellar customer service. You can also track your progress towards earning individual Star Seller badges for message response rate, on-time shipping & tracking, and average review ratings from here. Select an area to learn more: 

The Message response rate section of your Customer service stats page shows information about your response time in Etsy Messages

You’ll see the percentage of messages that received a response to the initial message within 24 hours. “Initial message” means the first message in a single conversation with a buyer, also known as a “thread.” You must respond to 95% of all your initial messages within 24 hours to qualify for Star Seller and receive the Speedy replies badge.

Message response rate is calculated by dividing the number of new messages you’ve responded to within 24 hours by the total number of new messages you've received during the calculation period.

Messages sent on the last two days of the 3-month review period may be excluded from the current review period and counted towards the next period instead. This is to allow Sellers a full 24 hours to respond and not be penalized for messages received late on the final day of the review period

How can I tell which messages count towards my progress towards Star Seller? 

The Message response rate only applies to the first message in a thread with a buyer. 

To help keep track of messages you should prioritize for Star Seller metrics, notification badges are displayed on messages which are: 

  • A buyer’s first time contacting you
  • A new help with order request

Both of these types of messages need to be responded to in 24 hours to be counted positively toward your Star Seller score.

What if I haven’t received any messages in the current review period? 

If you don’t receive any messages during the review period, the message response rate won’t be counted towards your Star Seller eligibility. You can still become a Star Seller based on the other Star Seller criteria. Once you receive an initial message, the message response rate will be applied toward your Star Seller eligibility, so be sure to reply within 24 hours.

What happens if I mark a message that I’ve already replied to as unread?

Marking a message as unread after you’ve replied to it doesn’t restart the 24-hour response time window and doesn’t make the message you’ve replied to “new” again. 

What happens if I receive a message that I consider is spam?

Messages marked as spam don’t count towards your response rate. 

What if I can’t respond to a message within 24 hours?

If you can’t respond to a new message thread within 24 hours, you have a few options: 

  • You can set up an auto-reply. These are counted in your message response rate.
  • Use Quick Replies to respond quickly to questions you get commonly asked.
  • Download the Sell on Etsy app to respond to messages on the go.
  • Go on Vacation Mode if you’re taking a break from selling on Etsy. 

Before putting your shop in Vacation Mode, reply to any first messages from buyers that you’ve received, since these will affect your message response rate.

The On-time shipping & tracking section shows a percentage of how many orders were shipped on time. On-time shipping means that orders were shipped according to the processing times you set in your listing description. You can also see a breakdown of your shop’s shipping performance. Star Seller is about meeting customers’ expectations, and these vary according to each market. Shipping at least 95% of your orders on time with tracking will earn you the Smooth shipping badge. Learn more about how to set processing times and “ship by” dates. 

Orders of a certain value will need to have tracking or a shipping label purchased on Etsy. The requirement values are based on currency. 

GBP

£10 and above

EUR

€10 and above

CAD

$15 and above

AUD

$15 and above

All other currencies (inclusive of USD)

Tracking or a shipping label purchased on Etsy required for all orders.

We use the total value of the items purchased before any discounts, not including shipping and taxes.

On time shipping & tracking will be reviewed on sales of physical items only. Digital download orders aren’t taken into account for on time shipping & tracking for Star Seller, but will still count towards your other metrics. If you’re listing a made-to-order or custom digital item, follow the steps in our guide to ensure that your listing is, in fact, listed as a digital item.

I entered tracking for an order but it’s not reflected on Etsy

Tracking may not be visible for one of these reasons: 

  • The shipping carrier may not be supported on Etsy. If Etsy cannot process your carrier’s tracking events, you can consider using an alternate carrier.
  • The number being entered is not the tracking number, or a slight error was made in entering the number. 
  • There may be an occasional technical issue beyond your control. While the on-time shipping metric won’t recognize tracking added after the shipping date, remember that orders older than three months will not count toward Star Seller metrics.

What if I offer local pick-up or delivery for my items?

At this time, orders that don't have tracking because they are delivered or picked up in person will be considered shipped without tracking, and will not meet the Star Seller criteria for shipping. 

In the Ratings section, you can see your shop’s rating average for reviews over a period of time. The goal is for your completed orders to have an average rating of 4.8 stars during the review period. This will earn you the Rave reviews badge, and get you one step closer to Star Seller.

Your ratings average is calculated by adding up all of the ratings you’ve received during the review period, and then dividing that by the number of reviews you’ve received.

The Orders section shows the number of orders you have completed within a Star Seller review period.

To be a Star Seller, you need to have received and fulfilled at least 5 orders within a review period. Orders that are canceled will not be counted toward Star Seller. This section will not appear in your dashboard if you've already met the 5 order minimum. 

The Sales section calculates the sales you made within the latest review period. This will not include shipping or any additional taxes collected. The items sold must meet certain thresholds, shown in the table below, within a review period. Canceled orders aren’t counted. This section won’t appear in your dashboard if you have already met the sales criteria. 

USD

$300

GBP

£200

EUR

€250

CAD

$350

AUD

$350

All other currencies

$300 USD

 

You can track your progress towards earning Star Seller in your in your Customer service stats page. 

What if I’m having trouble providing customer service? 

You will not be penalized for not achieving Star Seller status, but we expect sellers to uphold the customer service expectations in our Service Level Standards. It’s also important to meet our customer service standards. Consistently not meeting these standards may impact your search visibility, and shop or account status.

You can learn more about specific ways to improve how to deliver an excellent customer experience in your Customer service stats page

I’ve achieved the targets for a Star Seller badge, but I don’t see one on my shop

Check your customer service stats to confirm that you’ve reached the Star Seller targets for message response rate, on-time shipping & tracking, and average review rating. Make sure you’ve met our customer service standard for case rate too.

To reach the Star Seller target for on-time shipping & tracking, you have to complete 95% or more of orders on time, with valid tracking or a shipping label purchase on Etsy. If your orders don’t have tracking, you’re likely only meeting our customer service standard, and won’t be eligible for the Smooth shipping badge.

To become a Star Seller, your shop must also comply with all of Etsy’s policies. If your shop earned a Star Seller badge or individual badges, but no longer meets the requirements for the program, we may remove them. In accordance with the Star Seller Terms, the following may result in temporary or permanent disqualification from the program:

  • your shop no longer meets the qualification criteria
  • your shop has an overdue bill
  • your account privileges were limited
  • your account violated our Terms of Use, including and not limited to our Seller Policy
  • we have reason to believe you attempted to falsely inflate your Star Seller stats

If your Star Seller badge was removed because of an overdue bill, you may be able to reinstate your Star Seller badge by paying your bill.

Learn more about why a Star Seller badge may be removed.

The Star Seller badge is our way of recognizing sellers with a proven record of providing a great customer service. To become a Star Seller, your shop must meet certain criteria for messages, shipping, ratings, orders, and sales. Learn more about the Star Seller badge.

Etsy Support can’t make changes to your Star Seller data or manually award Star Seller badges. If you think your Star Seller score was calculated incorrectly, you can let us know in the Technical Issues forum.

If you have feedback about Star Seller, let us know in this survey.

If you meet the criteria to receive a Star Seller badge after an evaluation period, it can take up to 48 hours for the badge to be displayed. 

Messages, shipping, ratings, orders, and sales are calculated to determine Star Seller status. In order to be evaluated, you need to have been on Etsy’s platform for 90 days since your first sale.

The Message response rate only applies to the first message in a conversation. Initial messages from both buyers and sellers on Etsy are counted towards the Message response rate. Messages sent through temporary or recurring weekly auto-replies also count towards Message response rate. 

You can see your Star Seller status from your Star Seller dashboard: 

  1. Sign in to Etsy.com and go to Shop Manager.
  2. Select the Customer service tab. 

On this dashboard, you can track your progress across five areas related to the customer experience. You can also track your progress towards earning individual customer service badges for message response rate, on-time shipping, and excellent reviews from here.

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