Can I delete abandoned checkouts for GDPR compliance?

[Gergely_Kozma]

Hello,

is it possible to delete Abandoned checkouts? Its important due to GDPR, as it contains customer information (like name, email, phone, address).

Thanks.

[Ava]

Hi, Gergely!

My name is Ava, I’m one of Shopify’s Gurus and I’m here to help 🙂

I'm afraid there is no way to delete abandoned cart checkouts. The only types of orders that can be deleted fall under these specific categories.

If you wanted to remove some customer information for GDPR compliance, you can request this information be removed by our team. You can do this by going to the Customers tab in your admin, then clicking the 'remove personal data' button on the bottom right of the screen.

After that request has been submitted to us, we will transmit your request to all apps you have installed at the time you make the request that might have access to that customer’s data.

There is some more information here on how to process erasure requests here.

Let me know if you have any more questions, happy to help!

Ava

Social Care Guru | support@shopify.com

[TAGSAngel]

I am also wanting to do this because they were test orders put in by me and one that payments were still in test mode and I didn't realize.  It's a brand new shop.  At least can we just get them off the screen? archive seems to do absolutely nothing.

[ShmancyDesigns]

This really needs to be a feature. even if they are not deleted by shopifys system there needs to be a way to clear them from the queue in the shop.  Its obnoxious to look through with no method of sorting.  Seems like lazy design to me, hopefully its improved.

[sciclunari]

What I do is I set them as archived.

Then use the filter, I filter by Status = Open.

Then save the search, I named mine "Open"

Now you should have an extra tab at the top called open.

Whenever I go the Abandoned checkouts section I go directly to the new Open tab.

Still not a true delete but at least filters things out.

Hugs to all

[TAGSAngel]

Thank you. Yes, not a true delete and I'm somewhat ocd lol but I'll take
it. Thanks much!

[cassetteplace]

Yes, that is a small workaround for something that should have been taken care of by Shopify a LONG LONG TIME ago.  Most everyone wants to DELETE these and WHY is there no way to easily do it... You can "Archive" them but you Can't "Delete" them completely?? Just Incredible!! (it's 2023!)

[Ava]

Hi @TAGSAngel & @ShmancyDesigns!

I've checked this out with our Accounts team to get more information for you here. Abandoned checkouts are saved in the Shopify admin for three months. Once per week, a check is in place to make sure abandoned checkouts that are older than three months are removed from the admin. So those test checkout should disappear for you shortly! You could also try @sciclunari's method in the meantime, just so you won't see the test orders.

Have a great day! 

Ava
Social Care | help.shopify.com

[TAGSAngel]

Ahhhhh OK great Thank you! (but.. What if I wanted to keep some of
them?) for whatever weird reason I have - to monitor who keeps trying to
add product and leave, thinking they are killing my serps ? I'd really
rather have the ability to delete what I don't want and keep what I do (yes,
I am a control freak lol) but I'm glad to at least know that those test
orders will be gone soon.
Appreciate the info and the reply!

[sciclunari]

I guess then it is about exporting the data, and maybe maintaining it somewhere in a sheet on one of those many cloud services.

[oinkpigments]

We have abandoned checkouts from 2017, so that's definitely not happening to us. Does it only delete ones that aren't archived?

[TCRP]

Nope. I archive my abandoned checkouts all the time (the same ones, just in case it works some day) and they never go away. Still have some from 2018.

[bradas7]

Someone can Spam the crap out of your website cart and the owner of the website can't do anything about it.  Mickey Mouse and Pluto aren't going to buy what's in the cart, that I can guarantee you.

[MarcusK]

Yes, exactly.  The Mark Mustermann bot has been spamming my site on three occasions in the past couple of weeks with 50-100 fake sessions each time.  I'm stuck letting all of those abandoned cart reminders get sent out to all of those fake email accounts because Shopify somehow decided that we don't need the absolutely basic capability to delete an abandoned cart entry.  But they inexplicably took the time to make an "archive" feature instead?  I'm in disbelief about the lack of certain very basic features in Shopify, and I refuse to install apps just to plug those holes that should be part of Shopify's basic capability.

[cassetteplace]

It is April 2023 and we STILL can't DELETE Abandoned Checkouts! This is absoutely ridiculous!

Shopify are you listening...??  Why in the world would anyone want to keep these and NO they are not deleted every 3 months or so by Shopify themselves! This is Crazy!!

[cassetteplace]

That is NOT true at all. Many people have them from years ago. They do NOT just fade away after 3 Months!!

[TCRP]

Agree to all of your posts about abandoned cart emails. Still have some from many years ago, both archived and un-archived (tried it both ways). What is the reason for not being able to delete these if the "customer" has not placed an order - and if Shopify can't delete them as they say they do?
At least let us delete them if they are more than a month old!

[DCSA]

It has already been 6 years and this hasn't been fixed. Just today I had a customer that received an abandoned checkout reminder even though he placed the order (same email, account, etc.) a few hours before the reminder went out. He shouldn't be getting a reminder. I looked and his abandoned checkout is still there and it is connected to his account. Even worse, the next reminder he will receive is set to automatically send a coupon so that he can place the order. Of course, when he gets the coupon, he will ask for a partial refund. It's happened before. So we will lose money yet again because Shopify still hasn't seen the value of fixing this problem. 

[jasonavada]

Yes there is no way to delete the abandoned cart checkouts in Shopify. But you should read this article to learn how to disable the default abandoned cart email on Shopify, maybe it could help you in the future 😉