This is the qualification criteria for Star Seller, based on the last three months of your shop data:

Sellers will be reviewed on the first of each month, and the review period for Star Seller will look at the last three months of data prior to the review date. You can read more about Star Seller here and in our terms here.

Since Star Seller is an aspirational program that celebrates the best in customer experience on Etsy, only some sellers are currently meeting the qualification criteria. The program does not penalize those who do not achieve Star Seller. If Star Seller isn’t attainable for you right now, don’t worry—there are many paths to success on Etsy. Although Star Sellers have an increased chance of being featured in buyer marketing, they aren’t the only sellers that we feature, leaving room for many other shops to continue to be in the spotlight.

Star Seller does not directly impact the ordering of search results. The Star Seller badge, however, will make it easier for buyers to identify and shop from Star Sellers.

We determine Star Seller eligibility by reviewing the last 3 months of your shop's performance on Etsy, regardless of vacation mode. If you come back from vacation and you reach the Star Seller criteria for the current review period, then you’ll be eligible for a Star Seller badge.

We know that buyers in different countries have different expectations about what makes a great shipping experience. For sellers in certain countries outside of the US, only orders that are the equivalent of $10 USD and above will need to have tracking or a shipping label purchased on Etsy for Star Seller eligibility. For orders under $10, they should be marked as complete by the ship-by date. We also understand things can happen that are outside your control, which is why your on-time shipping & tracking won’t be impacted by carrier delays.

Adding tracking to all physical orders is one of the criteria for Star Seller if you’re in the US. If you mark an order as complete without adding tracking, it does not meet the requirement for Star Seller.

For orders where a buyer might ask for a delayed delivery, you can extend the ship-by date for an order. Keep in mind that the ship-by date can be updated once, before the original ship-by date has passed, and can be extended up to 21 days.

Sellers in certain countries can purchase low-cost shipping and labels options through Etsy. For sellers in the US, Etsy partners with Pitney Bowes to offer First-Class USPS flats and letters with tracking information included. With shipping labels purchased on Etsy, you can send your parcels at discounted rates that are cheaper than retail rates at the Post Office. We also offer competitive rates for flats and letters. For sellers outside the US in certain countries, only orders that are the equivalent of $10 USD and above will need to have tracking or a shipping label purchased on Etsy for Star Seller eligibility.

Your message response rate is based on just the first message in a conversation, not ongoing conversations. This means you just need to respond to the first message within 24 hours. This applies to messages both from buyer and seller accounts. Messages from Etsy staff do not count toward your response rate, and neither do messages that you mark as spam. You can also now find a breakdown of your message response rate score by downloading a CSV.

If you’re having a difficult time responding to messages during certain time periods, consider setting up an auto-reply, which counts as a response.

If messages are appearing in separate threads in your inbox, then as it stands today you’ll need to respond to the initial message of each thread. One idea to help mitigate this in the interim is to set up an auto-reply or to create a Saved Reply for multiple messages from the same user that don’t need individual responses.

If you don’t get any new messages during a review period, it won’t have a negative impact on your eligibility for Star Seller. Your message response rate won’t be included in your Star Seller eligibility unless you get a new message. If you do get a message, remember to respond within 24 hours.

To qualify for Star Seller your ratings average must be 4.8 or higher. To get this average, we take the ratings on all the reviews you received in the three month period, add them up, and divide by the number of reviews you received.

An average rating of 4.8 lets potential customers know that shoppers have left positive reviews of your shop. It’s also a stat you may be familiar with already—we currently show shoppers your 12-month ratings average on Shop Home. A reminder that you can respond directly to any reviews you receive to clarify what shoppers said (or add info they left out!).

When it comes to qualifying for Star Seller, digital orders will not require tracking information or shipping labels purchased on Etsy. Because of this, shops who list their items as “digital” instead of “physical” will still be eligible for a Star Seller badge since on-time shipping & tracking will be reviewed on sales of physical items only. If you make a made-to-order digital item that is currently listed as “physical”, make sure to update the category so that you can be exempt from shipping stats. Follow these step-by-step instructions to update your listing’s category.

We’ve made an update to fix this. Now you can specify if your listing is a made-to-order digital item, so shipping and tracking won’t be included in your Star Seller evaluation. To make this change, you should first specify the listing is “made-to-order” in the “About this listing” section. Next, specify that the listing is “Digital” in the “Type” section, and you’re all set—the item will be referred to as a "made-to-order download.” Note, if you’re updating existing listings that fall under these parameters and would like them to be recognized as made-to-order, you’ll need to delete the file(s) associated with the listing. Right now, this functionality is only available on the web version of the Etsy platform. For more information on this process, check out this Help Center Article.