Built-in Duplicate Customer Account Detection and Bulk Merge Tool

Topic summary

A store owner managing 4,000+ customer accounts requests a built-in duplicate detection and bulk merge tool for Shopify. Currently, identifying duplicates requires exporting to CSV, manually finding matches in spreadsheets, and merging accounts individually—a process taking hours or days.

Requested features:

  • Automatic duplicate detection using emails, names, phone numbers, or addresses
  • Confidence scores showing match likelihood
  • Bulk merging capability (not one-by-one)
  • Preservation of order history and customer data during merges
  • Proactive suggestions when new accounts are created

Business impact: Clean customer data is critical for analytics, marketing segmentation, and lifetime value calculations. Manual deduplication diverts time from business growth.

A community member redirects the poster to contact Shopify support directly for feature requests, noting these are peer-to-peer forums. They point out potential conflicts with existing merge limitations and offer custom development services for merchants with budget for tailored solutions using apps, Shopify Flow, or Mechanic automations.

Status: No official response; discussion remains open with suggestion to pursue official channels or custom development.

Summarized with AI on October 23. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.

As a store owner with over 4,000 customer accounts, I’m facing a significant challenge with duplicate customer records that’s becoming increasingly difficult to manage manually.

The Problem:

  • Customers create multiple accounts using the same email or slight variations

  • With thousands of accounts, manually identifying duplicates is extremely time-consuming

  • The current process requires exporting to CSV, using spreadsheets to find duplicates, then merging one-by-one

  • This creates data fragmentation, inaccurate customer insights, and poor customer experience

What I Need: A built-in tool within the Shopify admin that can:

  1. Automatically detect potential duplicate customers based on matching emails, names, phone numbers, or addresses

  2. Display a list of suspected duplicates with a confidence score or matching criteria

  3. Allow bulk merging of multiple duplicate accounts at once (not just one at a time)

  4. Preserve all order history, addresses, and customer data during the merge (like the current merge feature does)

  5. Provide merge suggestions proactively when new accounts are created

Why This Matters:

  • Stores with large customer bases (1,000+ accounts) need scalable solutions

  • Clean customer data is essential for accurate analytics, marketing segmentation, and customer lifetime value calculations

  • Manual deduplication takes hours or days that could be spent growing the business

  • This would improve data quality across the entire Shopify ecosystem

Current Workaround: Export customers to CSV → Use spreadsheet formulas to identify duplicates → Manually merge one by one through customer profiles

This feature would save countless hours for merchants and significantly improve data quality for stores of all sizes.

Location location location

For real actual feature request contact shopify support directly
And or use the search to find relevant existing posts with other merchants
https://community.shopify.com/search?q=merge+customers

These are the peer to peer forums specifically the Ask & Offer , are you looking to hire to have this custom built?

The problem with long fantasy lists of wants is you make an impossible unicorn.
If not outright ignore known limitations that would cause problems with the fantasy wants.

If your a merchant with a serious need and budget to match and want custom built solutions reach out to me.
Either for a custom app, or even automations using shopify-flow or mechanic.