Merge duplicate customers

[AnnH]

It looks like I'm not the only one seeking to merge duplicate customers.  It seems this has been requested for years now with Shopify claiming it's too complicated.  I used Square for years before moving to Shopify and while there aren't too many things I miss about Square the ability to merge customers is one of them.  If it's not too complicated for Square to do it then how is it too complicated for Shopify which is certainly a more powerful platform/POS than Square?  

[Rachel_Marshall]

agreed - this is a feature that i need, and my customers want.
(too complicated? for the folks who built an entire online ordering and shipping platform??)

[VintageAlchemy]

Replying to this thread as well about merging customer accounts. WE NEED THIS FEATURE!

[KalaJordan]

Any word on whether this is in the queue? 

@Shopify 

[Shopalldaye]

We really NEED this Shopify 

[Edward-Newgate]

Hi 

I found this method to merge customer data on Shopify, hope it's useful for you.

By the way, If you have any trouble while doing business on Shopify, this website: Avada Commerce would be useful for you. 

Hope it helps!

[CVT]

The note above does not remedy the problem of duplicate customers in Shopify. The title is "Merging Shopify’s customer data with Repeat Customer Insights analysis" which is not what is requested. 

The request is for  a way to merge two Shopify customers into one record. 

We need it too! 🙂

[Helen]

Hello, Community Members! Thank you for starting, and contributing your concerns to this thread. 

I can understand how being able to merge customer accounts would be helpful. Therefore, what I can do for you, is submit feature requests to our developers on your behalf so that they are made aware of this, and we can hopefully get it put onto their to do list.

In order to properly relay your specific requirements for this feature, I’d really appreciate it if you could reply within this thread with more information as to how it is impacting your particular business. For example: 

• Do you have customers who have placed POS orders and online orders, but end up with two different customer accounts?
• Is this impacting your reporting? (ie. issues caused by typos)
• Are you needing to fully understand how much your large wholesale customers are spending?
• Do you have multiple customer accounts from the same POS, where the buyers have been using different credit cards?
• Have your customers purchased subscriptions through one email, and new orders through another email address?
• Do you find your customers are using both a work and home email, but ordering from both, in which case you’d like to have them show up as one distinct customer?

Thanks for your cooperation!

[CVT]

Thanks for reaching out!

We are primarily users of Shopify's *POS *system and duplicate customer
creates a problem at the register when customers would like to make a
return or exchange and have misplaced their receipt. The cashier may have
to comb through past orders of several customers to find the order, reprint
the receipt and then scan the QR code to use it for payment. It's very
cumbersome.

Why duplicates are being created is not clear to me. I thought cashiers
must have been having trouble locating customers, but there are SO many
duplicates that I don't think this is the case.

Regarding customers using different credit cards - does this apply only to
online ordering or also to POS transactions? i.e. if an existing customer
comes to the reg, the cashier pulls up their customer record and adds them
to the order and the customer uses a different card than the last time,
will this created a new customer record?

We do have customers with multiple emails, so it would be helpful to be
able to add more than one email to a customer record.

Thanks!

[Helen]

That does sound cumbersome, @CVT! An email address is the unique identifier for a customer account, and only one email address can be associated with a customer account. So the easiest way to search for a customer on the POS is by their email address. That being said, the POS shouldn't be creating duplicate accounts for the same customer, unless they’ve given different email addresses each time they’ve purchased. Have you checked to see if this is the case with each duplicated account? Let me know what you find out, and if there are duplicates of customers with the same email address, we certainly need to look into this further for you.

In regards to the customer using different credit cards, the POS can detect a card that was previously used. It doesn't save/store the card details anywhere, but rather it depends on what information is made available by the customer's bank. That's why you may have noticed that on some orders that were made as a guest through your POS (meaning without an account), show the customer’s name on the order; The information is being provided from the customer’s bank, since that card was used previously. The credit card used for online orders on the other hand, are mostly impacted when using Shop Pay, since the Shopify checkout does not store customer’s credit card information. A customer’s Shop Pay account is separate from their Customer account for your store.

Moving forward, I have submitted a feature request now on your behalf for merging customer accounts when multiple email addresses are used. Although I can’t promise when or if this feature will be implemented, I recommend keeping an eye on the Shopify Changelog. All recent updates to the platform are posted here, so this will be the best place to find out about any updates regarding the ability to merge customer accounts. 

Let me know if I can help with anything else!

[Rich_Hamilton]

After being a Shopify customer since 2012 we have many duplicate accounts and there's a significant need to clean this up. It is directly impacting our ability to manage our relationship with our customers. Here's a listing of things I need to effectively manage my customer base:

- Customers need to be able to change their own email address at will. They should not have to contact the Shop vendor to do so.

- When a duplicate customer record is created for whatever reason, the Shop owner needs to have the ability to merge the two accounts to provide a consolidated sales history. Cases where this might occur:

* Customer uses a different email address to make a purchase.
* Customer makes a typo in his email address.
* A Friend or relative makes a gift purchase and then we want to tie that account to the main customers.

We need to be able to "clean" our database as much as possible in order to identify repeat customers and to use tools like anniversary coupons, Sales level discounts, etc.

Also, since we sell digital product that requires downloading, having all a customers orders in a single interface is a must.

I need to be able to query the database on a name, and if the search results generate 2 (or more) records that I know are the same customer then I need the option to merge these accounts, including all order history.

[Rich_Hamilton]

Here's another thread from this forum full of people with the same problems:

https://community.shopify.com/c/Shopify-Discussion/Merge-Customers/m-p/963921#M211208

There's another one too, which had even more posts, but I can't find it at the moment.

[Helen]

Thanks for your feedback, @Rich_Hamilton. We appreciate that you’ve chosen to use Shopify for so long, and it’s important to us to continue to improve the platform to stay current for an evolving business like yours.

We certainly want you to have the best possible relationship with your customers, therefore, I have submitted the following two separate feature requests to our developers on your behalf. Thanks for elaborating on how these are important for the way your business operates. I’ve included your exact reasoning in the submission. 

1. To have the ability to merge customer accounts 
2. Allowing for customers to be able to edit their own account details, including their email addresses

As I mentioned previously within this thread, the Shopify Changelog is the best place to watch for updates to the platform as they happen. Therefore, if/when these upgrades are made, checking the Shopify Changelog is the quickest way to be informed about it. 

Thanks again for taking the time to provide your input, and If I can help with anything else, just let me know. 

[katiefinn]

We also are in need of merging duplicate customer accounts. 

For me, it's about point accumulation through a loyalty program and to look up previous orders.

My clerk is entering new customer info instead of looking them up first. We also had an issue with Mailchimp exporting a bulk email list which also created duplicates where an email address wasn't already attached to the customer name. 

Being able to merge customers sales and info is paramount to our loyalty program.

[Helen]

Thanks for contributing to this thread and being specific with how merging duplicate customer accounts would impact your business, @katiefinn. I have passed your feedback along to our development team. Thanks again, and please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns.

[cgreenejewelry]

Any update on this? We have several multiple accounts - some with misspellings, different emails, etc and would love to find a way to merge!

[Helen]

Hey, @cgreenejewelry. Thanks for checking in!

I don’t have an update regarding this, I’m afraid. But I have submitted another feature request for it on your behalf, so thank you for your feedback. Moving forward, the best way to keep informed about any changes to the platform, is on the Shopify Changelog; This is where all recent updates are announced.

If I can help with anything else, please let me know.

[alexxduvall]

Hi - 

Chiming in here as I see someone from Shopify is replying in the thread. Also worth noting is that there is a 14 page thread dating back years filled with explanations of how this is a problem for various Shopify users, different ways multiple customer profiles occur, and what kind of impact that has on businesses. Any progress on this request would be greatly appreciated by the shopify community, and its largely disheartening that no progress has been made in the time that the other thread has been open. 

In response to your questions:

• Do you have customers who have placed POS orders and online orders, but end up with two different customer accounts?
  YES! Usually, it occurs when in-store customers don't provide an email, then shop later online and create an account. Being able to merge the two (sometimes several accounts) to accurately track high value customers would be incredibly helpful. 
• Is this impacting your reporting? (ie. issues caused by typos)
  YES! We cannot generate the lifetime value of our customers at all because of multiple profiles per customer with various orders associated with each. 
• Are you needing to fully understand how much your large wholesale customers are spending?
  YES!
• Do you have multiple customer accounts from the same POS, where the buyers have been using different credit cards?
  YES!
• Have your customers purchased subscriptions through one email, and new orders through another email address?
  Not subscriptions for me, but people not being able to access their purchase history through the account they create. 
• Do you find your customers are using both a work and home email, but ordering from both, in which case you’d like to have them show up as one distinct customer?
  YES! Additionally, we sell to customers that have associated companies, and having a feature to group customers into companies to see how much they spend would be helpful (but probably wishful thinking). 

Thanks in advance for any help. 

[Helen]

Hi, @alexxduvall. Thanks for reaching out and for answering the questions from earlier in this thread. It really helps to know exactly how being able to merge customer accounts would impact your business; I have passed along your answers and submitted a feature request on your behalf for it now too.

I completely understand your concerns about being able to merge customer accounts. Please know that the Shopify developers are continuously working on improving the platform for both the merchant and customer experience. As you can imagine, they receive a lot of feature requests on a daily basis, and they are doing their best to evaluate and prioritize those improvements that would be most impactful to as many merchants as possible. So, thanks again for your feedback on this, and I’m hoping and advocating for this upgrade as well. The best way to stay up to date on all platform updates is through the Shopify Changelog, so keep checking it!

[CVT]

Looking at the changelog it seems that Shopify has invested it's development resources in expanding to other countries, rather than serving the needs of their existing client base. I am also disappointed and more than a little frustrated about getting the same response to every request.