Is there a way to differentiate between Customer Emails and Seller Emails

[BusyasaBeeLLC]

So I was on track for Star Seller this next month, but it's showing that my message response rate is 60%.  I immediately respond to all my customer messages, but I have some messages from sellers that I have purchased from to join their Facebook community or buy their whole shop for a discounted rate and those messages didn't need a response.  Why am I being penalized for this?  There should be a way to differentiate between customer and seller messages.

[OwlAlwaysKnit]

I think the only way you could do that would be to set up a separate buyer only account.

[NanaLetha]

The rules are very clear - respond to ALL messages or mark as spam.

[bradgoodell]

Etsy's Star Seller rules have always said "All new messages, from either buyers or sellers."   So yeah, that message from a seller required a response.  Either respond, or put in in Spam.  

As you well know, buyers are sellers and sellers are buyers on Etsy.  So Etsy made it all-encompassing. 

[BagmakerSupply · Accepted solution]

@BusyasaBeeLLC: "I have some messages from sellers that I have purchased from to join their Facebook community or buy their whole shop for a discounted rate" Under Etsy's Terms of Use these messages are not allowed and are SPAM and should be marked as such.

If the unanswered new thread is not a Help Request, at least for the time being, it appears that marking an unanswered message as SPAM (even after the 24 hour deadline has passed) will cause your reply percentage to change in a day or two if the original message was within the current star seller period (but not retroactively). Note that subsequent messages from that account may go directly to the SPAM folder.

Remember that for Star Seller you need to reply to the FIRST message of EVERY NEW INCOMING THREAD within 24 hours. It does not matter who sent it, the subject matter, if it is a duplicate or blank or anything else. If it is SPAM then it should be marked as such.

[BusyasaBeeLLC]

Thank you!  I didn't even realize I could mark messages as SPAM.  I will from now on.

[CraftyCornishMaids]

You have to reply to all new message threads, etsy highlights them in BLUE so you can't miss them

Mark them as spam, if they are spam
reply to them, if they are not spam

or

use a buyer account to purchase, not your selling account.

....

.... Etsy, without reading the message, won't know if it's someone you purchased from, getting back to you about the purchase, or whether that seller saw our shop, and wanted to ask you about something they would like to buy
and they aren't going to read millions of messages a day, just to find out  

[VibeEnvy]

"MESSAGE" response rate.

Not "SELLER" response rate.

Message is a message.

A seller thanks you for ordering but in their same message thanking you for ordering, they say they like one of your items and are interested in buying. How would they calculate this "seller" message that's an interested "buyer" message? By counting it regardless because "anyone" who who has established a line of communication to your shop is a potential customer.