Can we merge duplicate customer accounts on our sales platform?

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

Main topic: merging duplicate customer accounts in Shopify, impacts on order history, rewards, and reporting.

Early state: No native merge; Shopify suggested workarounds (edit dormant account info, add tags). Merchants cited causes: email typos, multiple emails/phones, POS vs online, Apple Pay using alternate emails, staff errors, “optional account” flow creating inactive accounts.

Interim solutions: Reassign orders to the correct customer to consolidate history; then delete duplicate profiles with 0 orders (now possible). Limitations: timeline entries and “customer since” don’t transfer; detection of duplicates requires CSV exports or apps.

Third‑party app: Doppelganger links (not merges) accounts and surfaces duplicates; some merchants use it, others raise data‑privacy concerns.

Recent update: Shopify introduced a “Merge Customer” feature with hard blockers:

  • If either profile has a registered account, subscription contract, is a B2B contact, has active gift cards, discounts (wholesale), metafields, a merge in progress, or a customer data/data‑redaction request.
  • Credit card on file currently blocks merges; fix in progress. Disabling accounts doesn’t allow merging.

Outcomes: Limited merging works in some cases; no auto‑detection/auto‑merge; merchants request parent/child (company) linking and household consolidation. Status: Ongoing; feature in early stages with no firm timeline.

Summarized with AI on February 5. AI used: gpt-5.
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Hi Michelle,

I totally agree. It’s a step in the right direction but not perfect.

But Shopify is working on a proper solution. They’ve recently (1,5 weeks ago) asked me to review some code documentation for a merge functionality. It seems you’ll be able to merge two accounts. From the current state of the documentation it does not seem you’ll be able to decide which information from which account you want to keep. But rather you choose a main account which the other account will be merged into. If the second account has information that the main account does not, like a phone number, that information will be transferred to the main account.

I have not idea when Shopify plans to release this though. It’s still in a very early stage. I expect it will be months still.

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