[dfdz]

> End the Star Seller Program

I did not know exactly what the star seller program was. It requires that in the last three months of shop data [1]:

> 95%+ of first messages in a thread are responded to within 24 hours.

> 95%+ of orders ship on time with tracking

> 95%+ of orders receive 5 star reviews

> minimum of 10 orders and $300 in sales

In the petition [2] they explain the Star Seller Program as:

>Passive aggressive efforts to influence seller behavior are counter-productive and result in a worse customer experience. Rather than making us mad at buyers who leave glowing 4-Star reviews, or making us feel that we can no longer offer letter class shipping on items like cards and stickers, Etsy should leave us to individually do the best we can for each and every customer in each and every situation.

[1] https://www.etsy.com/starseller

[2] https://www.coworker.org/petitions/cancel-the-fee-increase-w...

[jeremymcanally]

The first two bullets are fairly reasonable (especially shipping on time...24 hours response isn't great but whatever), but expecting that high of a 5 star rate is almost unheard of. I see shops that do it, but we get 4 stars quite often for things like "Oh it was smaller than I expected" even though the listing says the exact measurements like 4 times.

Also note that it says "95% of orders" not "95% of ratings." We get feedback, maybe, like 40% of the time if we're lucky. If you're not begging for ratings, you won't hit that number.

They aren't overtly doing much with the Star Seller program yet, but I can almost guarantee that they will in the future. I'm 99% sure it's already influencing search rankings (since they influence them in other ways already, such as prioritizing listings with free shipping). I understand some of that is to promote sales which benefits the seller and Etsy, but if they are or start using Star Seller to tweak results, that's not really benefiting anyone that I can see.

[nanidin]

95% only seems reasonable for thumbs up / thumbs down style rating systems. Too many people treat 5 and 10 star rating systems differently to require 95% 5 star ratings. Etsy and others should disclose the downsides to leaving a 4 star review at the time the customer is leaving the review. For me, 3 is OK, 4 is good, and 5 is PERFECT and is rarely ever given out on any system.

[kbenson]

> 95% only seems reasonable for thumbs up / thumbs down style rating systems.

Maybe for average of ratings, not for average of all things that could be rated, whether rated or not. Those are very different things.

[AlwaysRock]

Exactly. Even more so when having anything other than the top 5% or 10% is functionally as bad as having a 45% rating.

[Beltalowda]

> we get 4 stars quite often for things like "Oh it was smaller than I expected" even though the listing says the exact measurements like 4 times.

It's hard to really gauge the size of something from just measurements. One thing that often annoys me about product pages is that have a bazillion images of the thingymabob, but don't actually have a bunch of images where it shows the thingymabob in perspective; e.g. somehow actually holding it, a wider-angle picture of it in regular context (e.g. a painting actually framed on a wall in a regular living room or whatnot), and that kind of stuff.

Anyway, just an aside.

I also see a 4-star review as "excellent", but many of these platforms seem to see anything less than 5 stars as "bad".

[jeremymcanally]

I agree, but we've really tried everything to be honest! We put comparative photos on there, mention comparative sizing (e.g., "This is about the size of a normal business card"), and so on. Still, people get it and think it's going to be bigger/smaller and somehow that's a defect? It's just part of working with retail customers of a physical product, but unfortunately minor things like that have an outsized impact in a sales ecosystem like this that expects perfection in these interactions.

[Beltalowda]

As a customer, it's really hard to write these kind of reviews; people may still end up expecting something slightly larger, because even with the best of efforts it's just hard to judge these things from a picture or video. This is not anyone's "fault", it's just that humans aren't really good at judging these sort of things.

So what review do you leave? 5-star because the product is "as advertised" and otherwise good? Or 4-star because it's not quite what you were looking for? I think both options are reasonable.

The Real Problem™ here is thinking you can automate these sort of things without any human judgement and expect to somehow end up with a reasonable response. There will always be outliers that any human would judge as "yeah, that's just silly" but computers don't care.

[mosseater]

A 5-star review should be left. If you are given measurements and the product matches those measurements, the only one at fault is you. A measurement is literally a definitive answer to the size of something. Get a ruler or measuring tape out and visualize it for yourself. Humans aren't good at judging things precisely, that's why we have tools!

My ex was a clothing Seller on Etsy. A 4-star review because something didn't fit right was super stressful for her, because it meant her average rating went down and her seller status might be demoted.

I think a better option is to contact the seller directly if you are dissatisfied with the product. That way you aren't transferring your problem to them.

[wincy]

So it’d be super stressful if you run into people who are like “yeah they did a pretty good job I’m satisfied. Not the most amazing clothes ever but I’ll wear them. 3 stars”?

That’s exactly the type of person I was before I became a dev and learned about these insane algorithms. As someone else on this post said 3 star - good 4 star - great 5 star - absolutely amazing perfect service! went above and beyond

[capableweb]

It seems pretty simply. If you get whats advertised, you rate it good. If it isn't, you rate it worse. If it was what was advertised, but you figured out that wasn't actually what you were looking for, the rating for the product should still be good, even though you made the mistake of buying it. That's not the sellers fault in any way.

[Beltalowda]

But isn't a review at least partly subjective, based on how much you like the product? Or at least, it seems to me that's how it should work.

[notreallyserio]

Tongue in cheek: at what point is it cheaper to send three sizes (exact and +1/-1)?

[cade]

> It's hard to really gauge the size of something from just measurements.

I know some folks already hinted at this in the comments, but it's beyond bizarre to me to read this quote on HN. The size of something is literally the measurements. If the measurements are wrong, that's one thing... I'll sometimes cut out cardboard or mask things off in painters tape if I want to know how they fit in a space. Accurately reported measurements should never be hard to "really gauge."

[DanTheManPR]

It effectively means that a 4 star review has the same impact as a 1 star review.

[mdoms]

I ordered a bunch of stickers from AvE, my one and only purchase on Etsy. It seems ridiculous that he should have to package my stickers with tracking to get them to me, and I live on the other side of the world in the midst of a shipping crisis so I don't care one jot if it takes him a few days to pop my stickers in the mail. Consumer expectations these days are so ridiculous. They're stickers.

[mym1990]

Programs like this also encourage bots to come review or even buying reviews to game the system and if there is not a good way to combat this misuse, it can get out of hand pretty quick. Most reviews I look at on Amazon are pretty useless to me nowadays because I can't tell what's real and what's not.

[jdmichal]

I really don't understand these systems where it's "5-stars or bust". Why even have stars if the only thing that matters is 5 or not-5. If you only care about a binary signal like that, then just make it a binary question. "Were you satisfied with this purchase? Yes / No." You'll probably get a much higher response rate, and it will be truer to the actual intent. A bunch of people that would hand out 4 or even 3 stars may still answer yes to that question.

[systemvoltage]

As a buyer, there are so many ways to get screwed on eBay/Etsy, I am 100% with these requirements.

eBay has had super sellers for 20 years now. Not as stringent but it is beneficial to customers.

Meanwhile, Amazon continues to dilute their store with no control over review authenticity. Not saying Etsy isn’t prone to that but Amazon’s entire business model is to let these things slide. Etsy is at least doing something.

I really don’t care about sellers. I want a place for high quality products. Period.

[lkbm]

I'm definitely skeptical of dinging people for 4-star reviews, but each of these bullet points are encouraged by Etsy because they improve customer satisfaction and sales.

The petition does make a good point that some products may be better just shipped dirt-cheap without paying for tracking, but overall Etsy is pushing sellers to provide better service and do things that bring in more revenue, both for them and the seller.

[vitaflo]

My wife is a star seller on Etsy and it hasn’t been hard for her to maintain at all (and she’s never asked for ratings). But she’s also never had even a negative comment made about her product after thousands of sales. I wonder if some product types are more open to criticism than others.

[mitchdoogle]

My guess is that price (relative to the competition) is a good signal for this. If someone is buying an $80 mug for example, they probably really like that mug even before they get it, and so they're more likely to leave a good review. A $10 mug might be more of an impulse buy

[jeromegv]

You seem misinformed, this is 95% of ratings.

https://www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/your-star-selle...

https://www.etsy.com/seller-handbook/article/introducing-sta...

[jeremymcanally]

Perhaps it’s all ratings then because we’ve shipped 100% on time, pay someone to respond to customer messages within 8 hours, and we still somehow don’t meet the criteria.

[tmp_anon_22]

Seems to me they should offer at least 2 tiers of this rating system. Star sellers for organizations that can give out free product in exchange for 5 star reviews, and ~Premium sellers for those who can't.

[traverseda]

> 95%+ of orders ship on time with tracking

They actually hide some stuff in there. Tracking is expensive, if you add tracking to all your orders than someone else will offer a lower price and out-compete you.

Buuut, if you buy your shipping labels directly from etsy that counts as having tracking, even when there isn't any tracking.

So the actual effect of this is just to force people to buy their shipping labels through etsy directly. I presume etsy gets a bulk discount and keeps the difference.

[notpachet]

> So the actual effect of this is just to force people to buy their shipping labels through etsy directly. I presume etsy gets a bulk discount and keeps the difference.

Yes. A lot of ecommerce companies (Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Shopify, etc) have a labels side-business that works in this way. Volume-based discounts from carriers.

[atrus]

I don't think so actually. The prices of the labels on Etsy match the USPS prices for volume labels exactly.

[mike_d]

That is how retail works. You go and buy a hundred thousand of something from a company (in this case USPS) and then sell it to consumers. Your profit is the discount you were able to negotiate by making a bulk order.

[traverseda]

I presume they get the best volume rate, and then whatever the difference is between that and your volume rate is they keep.

[notpachet]

Correct. The USPS has what are called "published" rates, which is the set of prices that can be shown to consumers. Labels marketplaces (like Etsy) get an unpublished discount on top of those base rates and that's where the profit comes from. Those contract rates are not disclosed.

[Beltalowda]

That 24-hour response time seems easily gamed by just replying with just "we'll get back to you ASAP".

Indeed, Etsy even helps you with that; from their FAQ:

> What happens if I can’t respond to messages on weekends and bank holidays?

> 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.

[AlexandrB]

> 95%+ of orders receive 5 star reviews

This is going to be subject to Goodhart's law[1]. As soon as buyers are aware their favourite sellers on Etsy are evaluated like this many of them will always leave 5 star reviews, while others will try to use the threat of a < 5 star review to get special consideration from the vendor.

This is the same reason many people leave automatic 5 star reviews for gig workers unless something goes grotesquely wrong.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

[tsol]

This was my first thought. Now that I know that's how it works, I'm unlikely to give below 5 star ratings unless my experience is really bad

[efsavage]

95% of the ratings I leave aren't 5 stars, so that number triggers my fake-reviews alarm. I'm generally far more suspicious of a 4.9 rating than a 4.2.

[herunan]

This is all because Amazon has created unrealistic expectations. Customers think that everything should work like Amazon, even if you’re an artisan selling your passion online.