Great customer service is key to building trust with buyers. To help make sure you’re giving them a positive experience, you’ll need to meet our customer service standards for these four stats: message response rate, average review rating, on-time dispatch & tracking, and case rate. If you’re unable to meet these standards, your listings may show up lower in search results on Etsy, and your shop or account status may be impacted. Learn more

If you consistently go above and beyond these standards, you can earn Star Seller badges and even become a Star Seller for the month! This will help you stand out to buyers by showing them you deliver stellar service.

We’ll show you an overview at the top of this page on the first of every month so you can easily tell if you’re meeting our standards, have earned Star Seller, or have room to improve based on your customer service stats from the past three months.

You can also keep track of your daily progress by checking your “Customer service stats” section. These stats are refreshed every 24 hours, and you can click on any of them to dig into the details and better understand how you’re doing.

We appreciate all the hard work it takes to run your shop and are here to help you stay on track with our standards. On the first of every month, we’ll let you know if your customer service has room to improve and share what you need to do to meet these standards. You can also track your stats every day and get tips on how to boost your performance in between our reviews.

We want to make sure buyers can easily find shops that consistently provide a positive experience for their customers. If you’re consistently unable to meet our standards, it may lower your search visibility on Etsy, and impact your shop or account status.

On the first of every month, we’ll check if you’ve earned any Star Seller badges based on your customer service stats from the past three months. To become a Star Seller for the month, you’ll need to earn all three badges for message response rate, average review rating, and on-time dispatch & tracking.

Here are the targets you’ll need to reach to earn a Star Seller badge:

Since Star Seller is an aspirational programme that celebrates the best in customer experience on Etsy, only some sellers are currently meeting the qualification criteria. The programme does not penalise 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 three months of your shop's performance on Etsy, regardless of Holiday Mode. If you take your shop off Holiday Mode and reach the Star Seller criteria for the current review period, then you’ll be eligible for a Star Seller badge.

Before putting your shop in Holiday Mode, we recommend replying to any first messages from buyers that you’ve received, since these will affect your message response rate. Also, keep in mind that auto-replies are counted in your message response rate, so it’s a good idea to use them whenever you’re unavailable to reply to buyers right away.

Tracking is not required to meet the customer service standard for on-time dispatch & tracking. You’ll still meet this standard as long as you dispatch at least 80% of orders on time.

To earn the Star Seller badge for on-time dispatch & tracking, however, you’ll need to dispatch 95%+ of orders on time, with tracking or a postage label purchased on Etsy (when required, based on where your shop is based and the order value). Learn more

We know that buyers in different countries have different expectations about what makes a great delivery experience. For sellers in certain countries outside of the US, only orders equivalent to $10+ USD need to have tracking or a postage label purchased on Etsy to be eligible for Star Seller. Orders under $10 just have to be marked as complete by the dispatch-by date.

We also understand things can happen that are outside your control, which is why your on-time delivery & tracking stat won’t be impacted by carrier delays.

Keep in mind, tracking is not required to meet the customer service standard for on-time dispatch & tracking. You’ll still meet this standard as long as you dispatch at least 80% of orders on time.

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 won't meet the requirement for Star Seller.

Keep in mind, tracking is not required to meet the customer service standard for on-time dispatch & tracking. You’ll still meet this standard as long as you dispatch at least 80% of orders on time.

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

Sellers in certain countries can purchase low-cost postage 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 postage 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 postage label purchased on Etsy for Star Seller eligibility.

Your message response rate only counts the first message in a thread with a buyer, not ongoing conversations. This means you just need to respond to the first message within 24-48 hours to meet our customer service standard, and within 24 hours to be eligible for Star Seller. 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.

Your average review rating shows the average of all the star ratings you received from the past three months.

To meet our customer service standard, if you’ve received fewer than 40 reviews total, no more than 4 reviews can have a rating of 3 stars or lower. If you’ve received 40 or more reviews, less than 10% of reviews can have a rating of 3 or lower.

To earn the Star Seller badge for average review rating, you’ll need to keep your rating at 4.8 or higher.

Your reviews show potential customers what kinds of experiences past buyers have had with your shop, and what they could expect if they made a purchase.

To make sure buyers are getting a positive experience, we recommend following best practices for providing great customer services – it can help you avoid ratings of 3 stars or lower. For example, set clear expectations with buyers by adding detailed shop policies and keeping your processing times up to date. And if something happens outside your control, message buyers to let them know – they’ll appreciate the communication.

If you receive a negative review, try working on any issues that the buyer brings up, when possible. If you believe that a review doesn’t follow Etsy’s policies, you can report it.

We only count physical orders for the on-time dispatch & tracking stat. That means if all your items are listed as “digital” instead of “physical,” you won’t need to add tracking or purchase a postage label on Etsy to meet our customer service standards, or to be eligible for Star Seller.

However, you’ll still need to meet our customer service standards for average review rating, message response rate, and case rate to avoid lower search visibility. And to earn Star Seller, you’ll need to earn badges for average review rating and message response rate.

If you make a made-to-order digital item that is currently listed as “physical,” make sure to update the category so it doesn't count towards your on-time shipping & tracking stat. Learn how to update your listing category

We’ve made an update to fix this. Now you can specify if your listing is a made-to-order digital item, so dispatch 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 recognised 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 Centre Article.