Managing customers

When a new customer places an order with your store, their name and information are automatically added to your customer list. A customer profile is created when a customer interacts with your business in any of the following ways:

• signing up for your mailing list or a customer account
• placing an order
• starting an order, but abandoning their checkout

Alternatively, you can add a customer to your store manually.

You can send email messages to individual customers from your Shopify admin, or send discounts and email messages to groups of customers by using customer segments.

Add customer profiles

Note

Only one email address can be associated with a customer profile. You can change the email address that is associated with an profile by editing the customer profile.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Customers.

2. Click Add customer.

3. Enter the customer's information.

4. Optional: If the customer has agreed to receive marketing emails, and you have entered an email address, then in the Customer overview section, check Customer agreed to receive marketing emails.

5. In the Tax exemptions section, do either of the following:

   • If you charge the customer sales tax, then in the Tax exemptions section, check Collect tax.
   • If the customer is located in Canada and is exempt from sales tax, then from the Browse or search exemptions list, select the all the tax exemptions that apply to this customer.

6. Click Save.

Note

If you want to activate tax overrides for all customers at the municipal, state, or national level, then you can do that on the Taxes and duties page of your Shopify admin.

Send an email message to a customer

You can send an email message to a customer directly from your Shopify admin or from the Shopify app.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Customers.

2. Click the customer name.

3. In the Customer overview section, click the customer's email address.

4. Edit the subject line for the email, or leave it as the default. The code shop.name automatically enters your store's name into subject line of the email message.

5. In the Custom message field, enter your message.

6. To receive a copy of the message for your records, under Send bcc to, check the appropriate email addresses.

7. When you are finished, click Review Email.

8. Click Send notification.

Edit customer profiles

If a customer profile already exists in Shopify, then you can edit the profile from the Customers page.

Before you update a customer profile, verify if another staff member is currently making changes to the same profile so that your changes don't conflict.

You can add a note to a customer profile to keep track of special information about the customer. Only staff members of your store can access these notes. These notes aren't visible to customers.

Using tags can help you to organize your customer profile list. You can use tags to label your customers by using descriptive terms or to sort them into categories. For example, if you have important customers, then you can tag those customers as VIP. Tags can also be used to create customer segments. Tags are not case sensitive.

Steps:

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Customers.

2. Click the customer name.

3. To add a note to the customer profile, in the Customer Note field, enter the appropriate information about the customer, and then click Save.

4. In the Customer overview section, click Manage > Edit contact information and then make the appropriate changes to the following information:

   • first name
   • last name
   • language
   • email address
   • phone number

5. To edit the address, in the Customer overview section, click Manage > Manage addresses and do one of the following:

   • To edit the current address, click Edit next to the appropriate address.
   • To change which address is the default address, click Set as default next to the appropriate address.
   • To add a new address to the profile, click Add new address.

6. To change whether taxes are collected or whether the customer is tax exempt, in the Customer overview section, click Manage > Manage tax exemptions.

7. To change whether the customer receives email marketing, in the Customer overview section, click Manage > Edit marketing settings.

8. To apply tags to the customer profile, in the Tags section, do either of the following:

   • To add a tag, click the field, and then select a tag.
   • To remove a tag, click the X next to a tag.

Edit a customer's subscription payment information

If you sell subscription products and need a customer to update their payment information because of a failed payment, then you can update your customer's profile in the Shopify admin.

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Customers.
2. Click the customer you want to view payment information for.
3. In the Payment methods section, click More actions.
4. Optional: If you want your customer to update their payment information themselves, then do the following:
   1. Click Send link to update card.
   2. Select the email address that you want to send the email from.
   3. Click Send email.
5. Optional: For some payment methods, if you want to update your customer's payment method manually, then do the following:
   1. Click Replace card.
   2. Complete the Replace credit card form.
   3. Click Confirm.
6. Optional: If you want to remove your customer's payment method, then click Delete card.

Learn more about subscriptions.

Edit customer profiles in bulk

From your Shopify admin, you can use bulk editing to edit information for multiple customer profiles at the same time. You can select several or all customer profiles in the following ways:

• To edit several individual customer profiles, select each customer profile.
• To edit all customer profiles that are listed on the page for a segment or based on a search, select the Customer name checkbox. A maximum of 50 customers is listed per page.
• To edit all the customer profiles in your store, verify that the All customers segment is selected. Select the Customer name checkbox, and then click Select all 50+ customers in your store.
• To edit all the customer profiles in a segment, select the Customer name checkbox, and then click Select all 50+ customers in this segment.
• To edit all the customer profiles in a query, select the Customer name checkbox, and then click Select all 50+ customers in this query.
• To edit all the customer profiles in a search, select the Customer name checkbox, and then click Select all 50+ customers in this search.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Customers.

2. Select the customer profiles that you want to edit.

3. To add tags to or remove tags from the selected customer profiles, do the following:

   1. Click the ... next to the Edit customers button.
   2. Click Add tags or Remove tags.
   3. Add or remove the tags.
   4. Click Save.

4. To edit several pieces of information at one time, including tags, click Edit customers, and then do the following:

   1. Click Columns, and then select each field that you want to edit.
   2. Make the appropriate edits.
   3. Click Save.

Merging customer profiles

You might have two or more customer profiles that refer to one customer. In this case, you can merge two profiles together, combining them into one profile. Before you complete the merge, you have the opportunity to review and select what information the merged profile will have.

The following information is merged into one profile:

• orders
• draft orders
• addresses
• email address
• phone number
• name
• notes
• tags
• tax settings
• timeline events
• credit cards
• customer accounts
• gift cards
• discounts

If any information from both profiles conflicts, then you can cancel the merge process and adjust the information in each record on the customer profile pages before you proceed with the merge.

Limitations for merging customer profiles

Before you merge customer profiles, review the following considerations:

• After the profiles are merged, you can't reverse the process.
• If the profiles include notes, then the combined notes must be less than or equal to 5000 characters, including spaces.
• If the profiles include tags, then the combined tags must be less than or equal to 250 tags.
• If the customer is subscribed to email and SMS text marketing in one profile, but not in the other, then the merged profile is subscribed.
• The customer isn't notified when you merge their customer profiles.
• Profiles can't be merged in the following cases:
  • either of the customer profiles has, or has ever had, a subscription contract
  • either of the customer profiles is a B2B customer actively linked to a company, or still linked to past B2B orders
  • either of the customer profiles has been redacted or a data redaction request is in progress
  • a customer profile merge is in progress
  • a customer data request is in progress

Merge customer profiles

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Customers.

2. From the customer list, click a customer profile.

3. Click More actions > Merge customer.

4. In the Find a customer to merge with section, enter any of the following information to search for another customer profile:

   • first name
   • last name
   • email address
   • phone number
   • credit card number

5. Select the appropriate customer profile.

6. In the Merged customer section, review which information is merged and which information is discarded.

7. Optional: Click Change contact information on web, or Edit on mobile, to modify the selected customer information before merging.

8. Optional: Click View merge details, review the merge details, and then click Close.

9. Click Merge, and then click Confirm.

If you want to merge more than one customer profile into the current one, then you need to repeat the merge procedure for each additional profile.

Merging from the customer list

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Customers.

2. Select the two customers that you want to merge. If only one of the duplicate profiles is displayed in the index, then you can search for the other profile in the next step.

3. Click the … next to the Edit customers button.

4. Select Merge customers.

   • If two customers were selected in the list, then skip ahead to step 7.

5. If a single customer was selected from the list, then search for the customer under Find a customer to merge with. Use any of the following information to search:

   • first name
   • last name
   • email address
   • phone number
   • credit card number

6. Select the duplicate customer profile.

7. In the Merged customer section, review which information is merged and which information is discarded.

8. Optional: Click Change contact information on web, or Edit on mobile, to modify the selected customer information before merging.

9. Optional: Click View merge details, review the merge details, and then click Close.

10. Click Merge, and then click Confirm.

If you want to merge more than 2 customers together, then repeat the procedure for each additional profile.

Erase a customer’s personal data

You can request to erase a customer’s personal data and redact your customer’s personal data from Shopify’s records, and from any apps and channels that you’ve installed from your Shopify admin. Shopify only redacts personal information, such as your customer’s name and address. Learn more about processing customer data requests.

Deleting customer profiles

You can delete individual customer profiles. Alternatively, you can delete multiple customer profiles in bulk.

When a customer profile is deleted, the customer’s personal data, such as their name and address, is also redacted from Shopify's records.

Customer profiles can't be deleted in the following cases:

• the customer has an order history
• the customer has pending redaction because of a GDPR erasure request
• the customer has an active subscription now, or if the customer ever had a subscription in the past
• the customer is the recipient of a scheduled gift card that hasn't been delivered yet

If you attempt to delete multiple profiles in bulk, then only the profiles that can be deleted are deleted.

Caution

Deleting a customer profile can't be undone.

Delete individual customer profiles

Desktop

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Customers.

2. Click the name of the customer whose profile you want to delete.

3. Click More actions > Delete customer.

4. To confirm that you want to delete the customer profile, click Delete customer.

Delete customer profiles in bulk

If you attempt to delete multiple customer profiles in bulk, then only the profiles that can be deleted are deleted. Any customer profiles that can't be deleted remain in your Customer list.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Customers.

2. Select each of the customer profiles that you want to delete.

3. Click the ... next to the Bulk edit button, then click Delete customers.

4. To confirm that you want to delete the eligible customer profiles, click Delete.

Requirements for US military shipping addresses

Military mailing addresses in the US have a unique format that must be entered in a specific way. If the address is entered incorrectly, then the order might not arrive to the intended recipient. There are three different types of US military address:

• Army/Air Post Office (APO)
• Fleet Post Office (FPO)
• Diplomatic Post Office (DPO)

If you receive an order with a US military shipping address, then make sure that the address has been entered correctly before you ship the order. If the shipping address hasn't been entered correctly by the customer, then edit the customer address using the following guidelines:

• The recipient's name must be entered into the Name boxes, but their rank is optional.
• For APO addresses, both the PSC and BOX numbers must be in the Address field.
• For FPO and DPO addresses, both the UNIT and BOX numbers must be in the Address field.
• The City field must contain only APO, FPO, or DPO. Don't enter the name of the city.
• United States must be selected in the Country/region field.
• Armed Forces Americas, Armed Forces Europe, or Armed Forces Pacific must be selected in the State field. These locations might be entered in abbreviated form by your customer as AA (Armed Forces America), AE (Armed Forces Europe), or AP (Armed Forces Pacific).

If you're not sure about some of the address information, then contact the customer who placed the order for further clarification.