Merge Customers

[makers18]

Has there been any updates or progress on the ability to MERGE CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS that are duplicates?  We have a ton and we basically began online sales in early March.  This is really needed to keep up with past orders and preferences.  We also offer rewards for our repeat customers and this system has really made tracking sales difficult.  

[Rae]

Hi, @makers18! 

This is Rae from Shopify. Welcome to the Community. 

I appreciate you reaching out about this, and sharing more details about the difficulties this has created for your business. 

At this time, there isn't a way to merge customers accounts in the Shopify admin, but there are some workarounds that may help ensure sales are attributed to the most relevant customer account, such as: 

• Editing the customer's name, or email address, on the dormant account. This will ensure that new orders are placed under the active account only. 
• Adding tags to active customer accounts to signify repeat purchases, or to highlight any order preferences related to the customer. 

I understand this is an important feature for your business, so I'd like to learn more about how these duplicates are created, so I can share your experience with our teams directly. With this in mind, is there a common factor that leads to duplicate accounts? For instance, do you sell both online and in person? If so, do some customers have multiple accounts from purchasing in person, and then also online? 

Once I have more details on this, I'll send your thoughts and feedback directly to our teams. 

In the meantime though, if we have any updates to share on this feature request, we'll post more information on our Announcements page, as well as our changelog, so please keep an eye out there. 

I look forward to your reply! 

[NateDakar]

Any updates on this? Merging customers is VERY useful

[wildfiberstudio]

Yes, to merge customers would be great.  Our duplicate customers happened when we originally would swipe a card and it would capture the person's name.  We know put the person's name in first.  We would love to merge the old ones to the current customers as we work on a loyalty program on what they spend.  Hopefully it can be done.

[makers18]

No update unfortunately.  Basically, you can edit them all to look the same, but no merging.  It is a mess for looking up past orders as well for any type of loyalty program.  I can't believe it is not a feature being how many people use Shopify.  It is a one click solution in Square and they even suggest possible duplicates for you to review.  

[SpencerCran]

Agreed. We need this. 

Duplicates are created most commonly for us when:

1) Staff enter the wrong customer information

2) People purchase online with a phone number, then come into the store and purchase using an email address. Or purchase online with an email address one time and phone number another.

3) A significant other does not realize their household has a customer account already.

[Tough_Traveler]

We also really need this feature.  For us, this usually happens under these circumstances:

1) A customer places some orders using only a phone number, and some using an email address

2) A customer has more than one email address that they use

3) A customer buys something in our store and declines to provide an email, and then orders online and provides an email address

This can be particularly annoying when a customer places an order with their email address, then later places a second order and forgets to put in their email address, but then requests to be emailed updates on their new order.  It's impossible to add their email address to their second order, because it is rejected as belonging to another customer.  

[Rae]

Hi, all! 

I appreciate you reaching out with these different use cases, and outlining how each of your businesses are impacted by duplicate customer accounts. I've shared your individual pieces of feedback with our team. 

If any other Community members would like to request this feature too, please reply in this thread with more information about how these duplicates occur, and I will pass your feedback along as well. 

While we don't have any updates on this request at this time, if we have news to share in the future we will post on our changelog and our Announcements page. Our changelog is a great resource to keep an eye on, as it outlines product updates and any recent changes made to our platform. Equally, our Announcements page is the best place to read more information on new and exciting updates. 

Thanks! 

[gospaorg]

This is very much needed.

[ScotBell]

HOW IT HAPPENS

Customers forget a password, or that they have an account, and create a new acct. 

But they then either make a typo (yafoo.com instead of yahoo.com is one from this morning) or they skip an email address as they cannot create an acct (because it already exists).

IMPACT:

Customer frustration, as they cannot easily get into their account, and make typos or skip an email address.

Bad impression of us, as they don't get an email confirmation from the order.

Bad impression of us as they don't save the time they thought they would with the digital item. 

Extra effort on a busy customer's time, as they need to contact us

Extra  time by us spent on backward efforts instead of forward productive efforts, as we have to investigate / fix. We typically edit the earlier record by adding the prefix old- to their email.

Our "Yafoo" customer had a nice $75 download order which we fulfilled last night (after hours) but then this morning saw the bounce. 

-Scot

[landerson]

We have been asking for the ability to merge duplicate customers (usually for email typos) for over 5 years. It does not make any sense that the software folks could not have accomplished this by now. 

[AndryeaNatkin]

It's so frustrating to not be able to merge customer data into one account when they are in fact the same customer. Not only do customers use multiple email addresses but they go by various names, ie. mary vs margaret or sue vs susan.

Having the ability to merge these variations into one account would be so beneficial in so many ways.

It's the 21 century... PLEASE HELP.

[CrosspoolAle]

We also require this feature. It occurs most often when an order is made and the customer has used their email address online, then purchase again with their phone number. We run customers giveaways and competitions which rely on a certain number/certain of customer purchases to qualify. This makes it more difficult to manage. I'm new to Shopify, I surprised a simple function such as this is not available actually.

Mark

[makers18]

Agree. It has been a mess for the holidays with our reorders, and not realizing someone already has an account.

[CrosspoolAle]

I've also realised that many customers signed up to the mailing list without purchasing. When they came back and made a purchase, some don't re-enter the email address and they are created as another customer account.

It's an absolute pain.

[makers18]

YES! Same with us.

[impactcloset]

I am a brand new boutique and I have multiple customers that have different accounts.  Some of them because they have a different spelling of their name or used a different email address.  We sell online and in person in our mobile boutique using the POS.  I would like my orders from my customers to be clean and smooth and be able to pull up and see at a glance what a customer has purchased from us and how much they have spent with us.  Instead there are to many customers with orders under different names/email addresses.  What can I do - I would like to be able to merge these customers with their orders but I do not see that option . . . Why?  HELP!

[makers18]

We have had the same issues constantly, and it is only getting worse. It seems like a basic function of a system of that size with so many customers. Shopify continues to say they are not capable of doing this.

[skoutshonor]

I am in need of this as well. I have many customers that order without creating an account and use their phone number then make another purchase with their email and create an account. This is frustrating for our efforts as well as the customer. Adding points manually to their account for our rewards program is frustrating as well.

[SpencerCran]

It is kind of ridiculous that this has gone on for 5 years and is still not resolved. What is up, Shopify?