A merchant received an order from a customer who provided only a phone number, no email address, making it impossible to send tracking information through Shopify’s standard system.
Root Cause:
Shopify’s default checkout setting allows customers to use phone numbers instead of email addresses. This can be changed via Admin > Settings > Checkout > Customer contact method to require email.
Immediate Workarounds:
Ongoing Limitations:
Customers who checkout with only phone numbers cannot:
Shopify support indicated their development team is working on improving this functionality in future updates, though no timeline was provided. Multiple merchants have encountered this issue with new stores where email is not required by default.
Hi there,
as the subject already says. A customer had made an order yesterday but without email address but provided a phone number. This cause that I cannot send the shipping/ tracking information to him. the field doesnt exist in this case when I fulfill the item.
How to inform him?
Honestly i even didnt know that someone can order without an email address.
Hi, @DaveD !
Thank you for sharing your question with our network. The option to allow customers to checkout with email address or phone number is actually controlled in your checkout settings.
Head to Admin > Settings > Checkout > Customer contact method like so:
I certainly recommend making email address the required field to prevent this from happening again in the future.
Also per the screenshot you will notice that to connect with your customer/s via SMS you will need to use an app. Here’s some great solutions to choose from. On the flipside, if it’s just the one customer you need to connect with, you can even do so from your business phone number.
I trust that helps, but let me know if you have questions.
Hey Dave! As Olivia as offered, there are some great solutions available for SMS notifications. It may not be suitable for you now, but you may want to check out dedicated shipping apps as you grow (which offer the ability to tailor your SMS notifications, email notifications and tracking pages). Good luck!
I have a similar issue. I have the same settings set. Customer used only a phone number. Got their order. Needs to do a return. I have the ‘new customer accounts’ type selected for my store. So when they went to click the link to access their account, it asks for email, sends the code. The customer did the steps but sees no order. I guess how could she if she didn’t use an email? So what’s the solution in general for customers who used a phone number to order to see their orders? I asked support and did not get a clear answer. Is an SMS app required for that or is there a setting i’m missing?
Thanks for joining our thread, @SB_540 .
Customers can still choose to enter an email address on the order status page to receive email notifications for an order after the order is placed as listed in our SMS Order FAQ. If they chose not to provide an email address at any point pre or post checkout, there will be no email address associated with their profile to create an account or pull data.
There is no built-in setting for them to log in with a phone number, though you could absolutely peruse apps or a custom built solution to offer that. Alternatively, you can manually attach an email address to their profile through Admin > Customers.
If they are simply looking for past order information, their texts would still have the confirmation available to them.
Warm regards,
This same situation happened to us recently.
For a brand new store, much to my bewilderment, the default setting is to not require an email — which is utterly daft, but we’ve now changed the setting to require an email address.
However, we are now faced with the situation that the customer wants an invoice, instead of the silly SMS that sends just a confirmation code, and nothing else of any informative value, to the customer. They even phoned us to check we had received their order!
We have now collected the customer’s email address, but we cannot “resend email” as per the chatbot’s suggestion and the knowledge base articles.
So the question remains - how can we email a customer who initially provided only a phone number at checkout, their order confirmation (or invoice) for their purchase?
A quick update after talking to a human on the chat - the workaround proposed was to use the Order Printer app to get a PDF of the order, which we could then email via traditional method to the customer.
(Support Advisor): I have checked it here and I just want to set you an expectation that Shopify actually takes time to update this that’s why you are only seeing Resend SMS in your order tab. Though, I have found a workaround that would help us for this kind of situation. Since you’ve already installed the Order Printer App, what we can do is to download that pdf file and have it manually send to your customer’s email address.
So that has allowed us to give the customer what they want. Further, and reassuringly…
(Support Advisor): Yes, it should be available though it may take some time after you have updated the customer’s information. Though good thing is that our Developer Team are currently working on this matter to have it available into the next Shopify update wherein it’ll automatically updated once you’ve filled out the customers contact information.
Hopefully this situation will no longer be a roadblock in future.
