The good news is, that my cabochons sales have begun to really take off – on a platform that is not Etsy,where the poor babies sit twiddling their little stone thumbs and wondering why nobody sees them. Maybe that seems like no big deal, but I assume anyone thinking that is not remembering how things get more difficult for them when the electricity goes down during a storm…. Plus I’d need to find an electrical outlet to plug into to print my label…. The machine wouldn’t have a dedicated spot, but would need to be stowed, in protective packaging, between uses. For a small seller like myself(sometimes going without a single Etsy sale in a month), that’s a big expense.And,in my situation, I don’t have electricity at my house,and my business supplies are stored in my van. But the cost of the machine and labels are an additional expense that has to be offset. Granted, using Etsy Postage saves you a bit of money on, so seems like a good idea. When you contact Etsy support and ask if they can fix the issue that the system won’t allow the seller to, the suggested way forward is to use the Etsy Postage system, which is automated to be attached to the customer’s order. Until I neglected to notice that it had happened again. I began meticulously checking my departed orders to make sure they didn’t show as pre-transit, and…it was fine. Once that time frame has passed, you’re out of luck. All was fine for a while, but eventually I didn’t catch one, and noticed the parcel was listed as being “pre-transit.” Luckliy, there is a built in grace period, connected to your listed “shipping time frame,” and you have those days to adjust it. So, when the number error happened to me the first time, I learned my lesson, and began double, triple checking the Tracking Numbers as I entered them. But Etsy Support staffers do, and when you contact them, with photos of the post office receipt that shows the single digit discrepancy,and screenshots showing the package was actually shipped and received properly, they can’t help you. You’re reputation is damaged and the bots look down their noses at you for the rest of the month. It was due to my manually inserting the wrong number in a Tracking label.This has happened to me before (the second month after the Star Seller program was rolled out), and unless you catch the error very quickly and correct it, there’s nothing that can be done. I had a shipping error too, which adversely affected my status. I know many Etsy sellers have realized that the Star Seller program is poorly thought through, but when one takes pride in their business and work VERY hard to provide excellent service, efficient shipping and a quality product, it is difficult to be told you “weren’t good enough.” But one thing I get very clearly is that the smaller number of sales you make, the more a single ding to the metrics used in the Star Seller formula damages you. I’m not very adept in math, and I am unable to grasp the formula, much less run the numbers. Strangely, I DID receive those four 5 star Reviews before month’s end, and even a fifth one, but the algorithm calculates over a three month period…. Just under the wire, or I’d not have been honored with the Star Seller Status for yet another month. Luckily, a review came in yesterday(April 30th, last day of the month). I needed to get FOUR 5 star Feedback reviews to offset the damage incurred by a buyer unhappy because they didn’t read the listing. In March, I had ONE buyer give me a 2 Star Feedback, with there being nothing wrong on my end. You would THINK it is not difficult to maintain the Etsy Star Seller status, but it’s actually incredibly tough, and ironically, the metrics actually reward only big sellers who have on-staff employees and automated shipping systems.
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