I am pleading Shopify to add a sort function for customers so they can be listed alphabetically? Why isn’t this an option? (I ask this question honestly.) I had to export all 19,000 of our customers to a CSV and sort the spreadsheet alphabetically to look for redundancies so I can merge duplicates. Needless to say, this is not ideal.
Topic summary
A merchant with 19,000 customers requests an alphabetical sorting function in Shopify’s customer list to identify and merge duplicates more efficiently. Currently, they must export all customer data to CSV and sort externally.
Key clarification: Shopify customers are organized by unique email addresses, making technical duplicates impossible within the system. However, alphabetical sorting by name would still help identify potential redundancies.
Workarounds suggested:
- Third-party apps like Better Reports, Report Toaster, or Matrixify can provide alphabetical sorting and enhanced reporting features
- An existing feature request thread from 2021 continues tracking this request
Status: The discussion remains unresolved as a native Shopify feature. One participant expresses broader frustration with Shopify’s reliance on CSV exports and third-party apps for basic functionality rather than built-in solutions.
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Shopify “customers” are based on the email address that the customer is using. You can have multiple customers with the same first and last names, but you can only have 1 customer account per email address. So from a technical perspective, it’s not possible to have a ‘duplicate customer’, because if they use the same email for separate orders, it’ll all be grouped under the same customer account (ie. email address). I know that’s not really your question, but I wanted to state that, just in case others find this thread with a similar question.
With all that said, I agree that being able to sort alphabetically would be useful. Merchants have been asking for this since 2021 in this thread (https://community.shopify.com/c/shopify-discussions/customer-sort/td-p/1411894) … I’d recommend following that thread, as it’ll most likely be posted in there if this feature is ever released.
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If you’re open to an app, there are a number of them available that could help with this. Better Reports, Report Toaster, Matrixify, etc.
Claudia here from Better Reports.
Have you been able to find a solution for this with Shopify? If not, I would recommend our app Better Reports.
We can sort the customers alphabetically by full name, first name, or last name, and this in any sales report and/or including customer email, phone, and address details.
In addition to this, Better Reports has more than 60 built-in reports available out of the box that cover many common use cases for merchants. You can schedule reports to run at set frequencies to your email or Google Drive or export the reports in CSV, Excel or PDF format.
I encourage you to install Better Reports and start your free 14-day trial and I’ll be happy to set this up for you.
What do you think?
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Thank you! I did find that thread previously, and probably just should have replied there to echo those people’s requests! Thanks for your reply.
Thank you! I think we’re good for the moment, but I appreciate this info.
Unfortunately this seems to be Shopify’s solution to everything: export as CSV, import to a spreadsheet, manipulate your data, return to Shopify. Either that or try to find an app to perform a function that is so utterly basic that it defies belief that Shopify doesn’t have it. Or my favorite reply from them: “why do you need the system to do that?”, in response to my inquiry for inventory history that extends beyond 90 days. Side note, it has finally been increased - to a whopping 180 days. I swear these people have never worked in any other industry, only in front of a keyboard.