Can we merge duplicate customer accounts on our sales platform?

[makers18]

Has there been any updates or progress on the ability to MERGE CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS that are duplicates?  We have a ton and we basically began online sales in early March.  This is really needed to keep up with past orders and preferences.  We also offer rewards for our repeat customers and this system has really made tracking sales difficult.  

[Rae]

Hi, @makers18! 

This is Rae from Shopify. Welcome to the Community. 

I appreciate you reaching out about this, and sharing more details about the difficulties this has created for your business. 

At this time, there isn't a way to merge customers accounts in the Shopify admin, but there are some workarounds that may help ensure sales are attributed to the most relevant customer account, such as: 

• Editing the customer's name, or email address, on the dormant account. This will ensure that new orders are placed under the active account only. 
• Adding tags to active customer accounts to signify repeat purchases, or to highlight any order preferences related to the customer. 

I understand this is an important feature for your business, so I'd like to learn more about how these duplicates are created, so I can share your experience with our teams directly. With this in mind, is there a common factor that leads to duplicate accounts? For instance, do you sell both online and in person? If so, do some customers have multiple accounts from purchasing in person, and then also online? 

Once I have more details on this, I'll send your thoughts and feedback directly to our teams. 

In the meantime though, if we have any updates to share on this feature request, we'll post more information on our Announcements page, as well as our changelog, so please keep an eye out there. 

I look forward to your reply! 

[NateDakar]

Any updates on this? Merging customers is VERY useful

[makers18]

No update unfortunately.  Basically, you can edit them all to look the same, but no merging.  It is a mess for looking up past orders as well for any type of loyalty program.  I can't believe it is not a feature being how many people use Shopify.  It is a one click solution in Square and they even suggest possible duplicates for you to review.  

[INDIEBANG]

I agree.  I moved away from Square platform to Shopify expecting it to be much better and advanced.  But a simple solution to merge customers is still not an option. WHY?  Please fix this SHOPIFY.  Thank you. 

[wildfiberstudio]

Yes, to merge customers would be great.  Our duplicate customers happened when we originally would swipe a card and it would capture the person's name.  We know put the person's name in first.  We would love to merge the old ones to the current customers as we work on a loyalty program on what they spend.  Hopefully it can be done.

[Tough_Traveler]

We also really need this feature.  For us, this usually happens under these circumstances:

1) A customer places some orders using only a phone number, and some using an email address

2) A customer has more than one email address that they use

3) A customer buys something in our store and declines to provide an email, and then orders online and provides an email address

This can be particularly annoying when a customer places an order with their email address, then later places a second order and forgets to put in their email address, but then requests to be emailed updates on their new order.  It's impossible to add their email address to their second order, because it is rejected as belonging to another customer.  

[Rae]

Hi, all! 

I appreciate you reaching out with these different use cases, and outlining how each of your businesses are impacted by duplicate customer accounts. I've shared your individual pieces of feedback with our team. 

If any other Community members would like to request this feature too, please reply in this thread with more information about how these duplicates occur, and I will pass your feedback along as well. 

While we don't have any updates on this request at this time, if we have news to share in the future we will post on our changelog and our Announcements page. Our changelog is a great resource to keep an eye on, as it outlines product updates and any recent changes made to our platform. Equally, our Announcements page is the best place to read more information on new and exciting updates. 

Thanks! 

[AndryeaNatkin]

It's so frustrating to not be able to merge customer data into one account when they are in fact the same customer. Not only do customers use multiple email addresses but they go by various names, ie. mary vs margaret or sue vs susan.

Having the ability to merge these variations into one account would be so beneficial in so many ways.

It's the 21 century... PLEASE HELP.

[CrosspoolAle]

We also require this feature. It occurs most often when an order is made and the customer has used their email address online, then purchase again with their phone number. We run customers giveaways and competitions which rely on a certain number/certain of customer purchases to qualify. This makes it more difficult to manage. I'm new to Shopify, I surprised a simple function such as this is not available actually.

Mark

[makers18]

Agree. It has been a mess for the holidays with our reorders, and not realizing someone already has an account.

[CrosspoolAle]

I've also realised that many customers signed up to the mailing list without purchasing. When they came back and made a purchase, some don't re-enter the email address and they are created as another customer account.

It's an absolute pain.

[makers18]

YES! Same with us.

[Kim-and-Isa]

Yes same issue with us.. very frustrating.  There should be a way that when they create an account with the same email address shopify recognises it and merges automatically with account being created.. 

[Beverley_McNaug]

It is a feature that should be part of the basic package. More and more I feel Shopify is lagging in providing value for money. I am seriously looking at other options. 

[mtolleson]

I agree that this is a much needed function.  I too am beginning to look at other options.  Shopify is taking too long to provide some of the simplest POS functions.

[makers18]

Please update us if you find something better.  I agree, this should be a basic function for customer management, and Shopify doesn't seem to have it as a priority.  This will ultimately be a deal breaker for us, as we grow and need to manage our database, so we can understand and service our loyal customers.

[boostryan]

Any update on this?  Customers using multiple emails makes it extremely hard to keep track of their orders and it would be nice be able to merge the customers so that we use the email they prefer while still showing the orders from both emails used.

[CurlyGirlShop]

I need this as well. Customers are creating accounts with:

1. different email addresses

2. different last names 

3. short version of their full name

Ugh. Not fun.

Hopefully this will be rectified soon.

[apetitestore]

Yes please I have the same issues I need this !!!

[KendraFCP]

We need this as well. We have customers that sign up with their email and then sign up again with their phone number. The SMS alerts do not work as well as the email alerts and we want to merge everything under the email address. This is desperately needed to improve the customer experience. Thank you!

[SouthernSpirit]

We have several duplicates due to: 

the customer checked out via POS and didn't provide email or phone or address and then bought something at a later date online and included all the information. I went back to include her email address in the POS order hoping it would sync but shopify won't allow the email address because it already exists with the other duplicate account. 

It makes a big difference...  between sorting our data by most orders per customer and sorting our data by highest amount spent by a customer.  For example, I have a customer that when I sort the data by amount spent she does not show in the top 5 because of a duplicate account, and it's a discrepancy of over $600 to put her in the top 5.  Same with the number of orders she has placed as well. 

[Rich_Hamilton]

Adding my voice to this topic - again...we've had a store with Shopify since 2012, and I have asked for this to be resolved numerous times. We sell digital content and it poses a major headache for both the customer and me when there are multiple accounts. The customer can not change their own password associated with an account (yet another problem that needs fixed) and have no access to the old account to reset a password, so they generate a new account. I can't even tell you how many duplicates we have, but I really, really would like this to be resolved. 

[SarahFFW]

Hi Rae,

Has any progress been made on this issue? It seems Shopify Merchants have been asking for this feature for years, some as far back as 2013. Our shop is a hybrid online/brick and mortar shop, and we're having to consider additional development of our own or leaving Shopify for a separate platform altogether to solve this problem since Shopify seems uninterested in doing so. Nearly every database company/system has a means to merge customers, even Quickbooks. Is there something I'm missing? Given the increase in fees over the years and continued requests for this one feature, one would think Shopify would place some kind of priority on this issue. 

[daniellavoie]

Our shop is also impacted by that issue. Pretty much all scenarios evoke on this threads are valid to us.

[erikaastrid]

Click to expand...

This is much needed! I have some customers using different email addresses and need to merge them into one. Crazy this is not available.

[RENDermatology]

Would love the ability to merge customers.  

[Jarrod_Sanders]

Same here.  Repeat customers forget their password and just checkout with a phone number.  Boom...two accounts and separate product sales data across everything including all marketing efforts.   

I have been using Shopify for years and still can't see why this basic feature is not available.  Fingers crossed for sooner than later.  

Thanks,

Jarrod

Sunglass Savings

[CDR2]

I would also love to be able to have this feature.  Customers get new emails, forget their passwords, can't log in and need to reset their password, lose their email, whatever.  There are a number of reasons we ALL would like to see this feature.  Please make it an option for us.  

Thanks

CDR

Owner of a large online quiltshop

[Excan-Nick]

Still looking for a way to do this If sqaure space has this down like some of the first comments set I'm just about ready to jump ship due to my frustration. 

[odedesoie]

We have the same problem and I can't believe this isn't a built in feature! Customers subscribe to our mailing list without purchasing, which later locks them out of adding their email at checkout. Also, if someone uses just a phone number on one sale and then an email on another, Shopify doesn't automatically ask to merge. Please fix ASAP!

[AliRae]

+1....

Seems very odd that one of the biggest ecommerce platforms wouldn't have this basic functionality like all of the others do.

Hope to see it implemented soon but maybe we shouldn't hold our breath LOL.

[Nekohama]

Has their been an update on this? We see this all the time and we only have an online store. For some reason we have multiple accounts for customers and we'd like to keep them all together.

[michellegoo]

I wrote a note to the CEO outlining in detail what the issues are and asked for a resolution.  An assistant responded that they are working on it.  That was 3 weeks ago.

[Jarrod_Sanders]

Can you post what you sent to Tobias? Would love to see it!

[michellegoo]

This is the email we sent:

Dear Mr. Lutke,

Our store uses Shopify and we are having concerns regarding the ability to merge customers in our data base.  I have contacted Shopify Support several times to address these concerns and each time I am told there is currently no way to fix this.  I've also been told they would bring this issue to the developers to see if anything could be done about the issue.  There has been no follow up regarding this issue.  I went to the Shopify Community page and looked it up there.  It seems this has been an issue with a large number of Shopify users since at least 2017 (that's as far back as I scrolled).  Below are some details about the issue as it applies to our store.

• We have an online and POS presence.  When customers use a different email address online and/or in store, they have 2 different accounts.
  
• If a customer checks out at POS and staff forgets to put in the customer's name and the customer uses a different credit card at check out, it comes up as Visa Cardholder, thus creating a different customer account.  
• When we try to go back and edit the profile, it lets us put the customer's name in, but when we put in the email address, it says that email is already in use so we cannot add that purchase to the customers profile - thus creating two different customer accounts.
• If a name is misspelled on the customer profile, when the customer comes in and staff is looking it up, they end up creating a new profile with the correct spelling, not knowing there is already an existing account.  When we go back to correct the old spelling, we are unable to merge the files due to the 'email already in use' issue.

This is a problem for our store because:

• It makes it difficult to accurately gauge spending thresholds and loyalty rewards for customers (with more than one account).
• It makes it tedious when customers have returns without receipts because we have to look up their receipts under all of their profiles.
• It gives an inaccurate count for number of customers when doing emails and it duplicates emails when a customer has 2 different emails on their accounts.  
  

I personally, am willing to go through every duplicate account in our customer base and edit the names myself to merge the accounts - but while incredibly tedious, it is not even an option within Shopify the way it is currently set up due to the 'email already in use' error. If there could be a way to merge customer accounts without losing any of the purchasing history (from both email accounts), that would be ideal and would get rid of all the issues listed above.

I appreciate your time in reading this letter and thank you for your attention to this matter.

This is the response I got:

Hi Michelle,

My name is Mark and I am a Support Lead at Shopify. I am following up on your email to Tobi regarding merging customer accounts.

I appreciate you so clearly outlining the issues this is causing you and I recognise the difficulties that this feature limitation can have on your business. I also admire your willingness to fix the duplicate accounts manually.

It is never our intention to create more work or challenges for our merchants, and it is conversations like this that have helped shape Shopify into what it is today. We take your feedback seriously and I have already spoken to our developers about looking into this issue for the future.

While I cannot promise this gets fixed soon, we will be investigating it and you can see updates on Shopify Announcements or Shopify News.

Moving forward, I'd recommend looking over the email Michelle sent you yesterday in ticket #24949531 for possible workarounds.

Please let me know if you have any further questions, and I am happy to assist.

Warm regards,

Mark
Shopify Support Lead

***The workarounds he is referring to include tagging every duplicate account so we can weed them out that way.  At this point, that does not seem like a feasible workaround for our issues.  I would encourage everyone who is having issues to open new tickets and write emails.  This needs to be addressed and seems to be sitting on the back burner for some reason.

[Rich_Hamilton]

Would very much like to hear the final response as well. This should be core functionality with Shopify, and should have been addressed before everything else they have been doing these last few years. If we can't satisfactorily manage our existing customers, keeping them will be a challenge...and people have very little patience with these type of issues in the digital age. "I'm sorry, I can't merge your 2 (or 3) customer accounts because our software vendor doesn't see it as a priority and turns a def ear to our requests..." - "no, you can't change your own email on your account (like most other stores on the web)...I have to do that for you, sorry"... etc, etc...

[BbopnBarb]

Agreed.  We definitely need this feature.  All of the reasons previously stated apply to our business as well. 

1.  Customers use different email addresses during in-store or online.

2.  Significant others purchase for the other using a different email address.

[Lauren_Fennema]

Hi! Any update on this feature?

I know Shopify plans to roll out a bunch of new functionality - hoping this has been prioritized. Would be super helpful for Shopify to help:  

1. Scan a set of data points to identify potential customers to merge (first name, last name, ship to address) 

2. Produce a list of customer records that could be the merged

3. Allow us to auto-merge or select records and merge. 

Currently we have a ton of repeat customers showing up as "new" due to: 

- originally checked out with email, then checked out again with mobile #

- mis-spelled email

- checked out using a nickname or abbreviated name (i.e. Ginni vs Virginia, Jenn vs Jennifer)

- checked out without email on our POS, then checked out with an email on web

As everyone has outlined, it is extremely time consuming to understand new vs repeat customers, not to mention a hit to our business. Retention is the key to ecommerce success and identifying repeat customers is Ecommerce 101. This is the kind of functionality I would expect to be native to Shopify, not pushed to apps or other paid services. 

I love all the perks and partnerships (i.e. marketing tools, facebook stores, plugins, etc) but would also love to see Shopify prioritize basic native functionality like merging or managing crucial data points like repeat customers. 

[makers18]

There has been no progress at all, or at least no communication from Shopify.  It is obviously a major issue for the businesses, but Shopify has not addressed or made this a priority.  Very disappointing as a business owner trying to grow our online business.  

[joshdane]

We are also looking for merge customer functionality. 

Or at least Shopify natively notifying us someone is a repeat customer. 

[abielski]

This is a much needed feature indeed. At our store, a customer signed up once with her email address and second time with their phone number, and now there are two customer accounts for her.

[Kevin_Hartman]

When will shopify at least start to address this issue?  I brought this up 11 years ago and still nothing.    How hard can it be?  Your work arounds only cause more work, very inefficient. 

[mkmnails]

Please please please update this!

[jenniferj1]

For us it happens on point of sale A LOT. If a customer is not added to the cart BEFORE they use a credit card - it defaults to the name of the person on the credit card. Not just "no customer" so I can add one later... it literally sets up a brand new customer with just the first and last name of the card. Either get rid of auto-generating a customer from a credit card or let me merge customers!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have multiple businesses that send runners each with their own card but I KNOW the purchases are for a single business. I can change the name to match but I can't re-use the businesses email or phone number. I've only been using point of sale for 5 weeks and I already have over 15 customers for a single business. HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO TRACK ANYTHING!?!?!! And since I can't re-use email or phone addresses I can't even put in a phone number to pull them all up. I have to make sure each has the name typed in the same.

So for point of sale - it's not even an archived vs. active thing. It is literally creating new customers with each credit card purchase!!

Yes, I know I could just "make sure to add the customer to the cart first" but that is not a realistic solution. Things happen. I have a line of people waiting to check out. The courier doesn't know which store sent them, or my employee forgets. We need to be able to merge customers.

PS- I can't enter a company name unless I have a physical address associated with it even if it is a business not a person making the purchase.....Company name should be a basic info field and not require an address to enter. Especially with POS. I have runners come in and say this is for "Business B" and I have to put "Business B" in the last name field so it will pull it up for employees... Or they have to look it up on a hard copy list (in 2021!)... not everyone knows the first and last name of a business owner or sales manager..... uuuugggggghhhhhhh

[Lindsay_Sevigny]

We would love this to be a feature.  We have many customers who have several customer profiles, because they either use different credit cards in-store and don't provide an email, or different email addresses online.  For example we have one customer who has 4 profiles, because she shops in-store and online.  She has used 2 different email addresses online, and has also used 2 different credit cards in-store, which has created 2 different profiles. 

The ability to merge her profiles (and all of the other customer duplicates we have) into one would make it easier to track her purchases, look up her purchases if she needs to exchange and forget her receipt, and for rewards program usage.  

Am I making things up, or did this used to be a feature years ago?

[Kevin_Hartman]

Sadly this has never been a feature.  I have been requesting this for 11 years now, so dont get your hopes up.  Techs will enlighten you to the joys of exporting an excel file to alter on your own and then delete all your customer info and reupload the fixed excel file.... yeah like I would ever risk doing something that stupid and then again when it's time to clean up once more... no thanks. 

[Rich_Hamilton]

I have talked to a independent developer who is going to try and create a custom app to address this...it remains to be seen if that will come to fruition or not though. I feel pretty confident Shopify will do nothing about it. Pretty disappointing really.

[makers18]

Agree. It is really something that should be a basic function. Even if we had to do it manually, I wouldn’t mind.

[george_d]

I would love to hear the result of that conversation. I would happily buy that extension. It’s ridiculous that we don’t have that feature directly from Shopify. I have requested it a few times from techs and supervisors.
Just one of the reasons I wish I would have gone with a different platform years ago.