#and im pretty sure tracking is fairly cheap in the usa.. so basically just international shops are being penalized for this

[kirstielol]

ok i would like to have a little long rant about something etsy introduced a few weeks ago

the star seller program:

basically if you meet the criteria, you get a fancy badge on your store page and all of your listings, making your shop stand out, and not just that but etsy will feature your stuff more often (which is a pretty big deal)

so based on that badge you see, it seems easy to get the badge right? get good reviews, dispatch orders on time, and reply to messages quickly. easy peasy.

except it's not, because there's one more criteria you need to meet that they don't mention, and that's needing to provide tracking on 95% or more of your orders..

so yeah here's my shops progress on this star seller program.. i always reply to messages right away, my shop gets a lot of good reviews, but it looks like i don't dispatch on time..........

until you click that and see exactly what they're grading me on

for privacy reasons i blocked out exactly how many orders i've gotten, but look at that.. 0 orders dispatched late, it's all because i don't provide tracking

and why is that? because it's really damn expensive to get tracking in canada.

i used a postage rate calculator on the canada post website to calculate how much it would cost to send myself a small regular weight envelope, and..

the cheapest option is $13. i sell stickers, a sheet of my stickers cost $4.. you think my customers would pay $13 shipping for a $4 sticker sheet? i know i wouldn't.

it costs me $1 to mail orders within canada if i just use a stamp, and only $1.30 to mail to the usa. tracking to the usa would cost minimum $16 if i had to provide tracking.

so yeah, my shop will never be a star seller because of this, and it's really frustrating.

#this got long i apologize but im just so salty #etsy #star seller #and im not the only one pissed about this i see a lot of sellers have the same complaints #and im pretty sure tracking is fairly cheap in the usa.. so basically just international shops are being penalized for this