How MergeGuard for Shopify works, goal by goal

MergeGuard counts each customer once across all their profiles, then helps you with four jobs. Start with the one you came for. Each job works the same way: you find who is affected, you decide, you use the result in your own tools, and you check what happened.

Start from your goal

Win back and keep customers

A customer who ordered last week can look like they stopped ordering, because the order sits on another profile. In the demo store, 905 customers look like they stopped ordering, and 842 really did Demo store (Northsail Supply). Win-back lists check every profile before they say anyone stopped ordering. Subscribers who may cancel lists subscribers who show signs they may cancel, such as buying their subscription product separately. MergeGuard shows signs and never predicts a cancellation.

Recognize VIPs, plan your next offer

Spend adds up across profiles. In the demo store, 18 VIPs on single profiles are 27 VIPs as people Demo store (Northsail Supply). VIP lists include Close to VIP, and lists for your next offer find customers by how they buy, such as Buys in bulk or Buys on sale every time. You write the offer and send it.

Send to cleaner lists

In the demo store, 1,012 subscribed contacts are 926 people, so 86 would get the newsletter twice Demo store (Northsail Supply). Newsletter cleanup finds them, and you remove the extra contacts in your email platform. Contact fixes suggest a correction for a mistyped email, and you approve it. When the corrected address already belongs to another customer, there is no fix: the row goes under Matches another customer, with Merge in Duplicates as the action. To send a list to Klaviyo or export a CSV, see MergeGuard and Klaviyo.

Clean up customer records

Find and review duplicates groups the profiles that look like one person and shows why. Merge rules and automatic merging are the settings you control, protected profiles show what Shopify won’t merge, and History records every change.

Four steps on every goal

• Find. MergeGuard scans your customers and shows groups, counts and lists.
• Decide. You read the evidence and choose.
• Use. The result goes to your tools, by Klaviyo sync or CSV export, when you choose.
• Check. Shopify verifies each merge and History records it.

The rest of this page follows a merge, the one action that can’t be undone. Every merge follows the same four steps. You see the evidence, you decide, Shopify verifies the result, and History keeps the record. Automatic merging, if you switch it on, replaces only the second step, and only for strong matches, plus groups that need your judgment if you add them.

1. See the evidence

MergeGuard scans your customers and sorts possible duplicates into groups:

• Strong: details match closely.
• Needs your judgment: some details differ, so you decide.
• New: groups found since your last visit.
• All open: every open group.

Under Show, you can also open Protected groups, which Shopify won’t merge, with the Shopify blocker for each profile that can’t merge (why Shopify blocks some merges), and groups Marked not a duplicate, which you can restore to your list.

Open a group and the review sheet shows “Why we think it’s one person”: which name, email, phone and address details match across the profiles. Your merge rule (Email, Phone, or Email and phone) decides which profile is recommended as the one to keep. It does not change which groups are found.

Duplicates are normal on Shopify. Guest checkout, typos and new email addresses all create them. Read more in Find and review duplicates.

2. You decide, or automatic merging follows your settings

MergeGuard recommends a profile to keep, from the profiles that have the details your merge rule asks for (Email, Phone, or Email and phone), or from every profile when none has them. The kept customer uses a subscribed email or phone when one of the profiles has it. In a group’s review you choose which email, phone and address the merged customer keeps, then pick Merge or Not a duplicate.

Before a merge runs, the confirmation tells you what will happen: “This can’t be undone.” and “Each merge is recorded in History.” A whole group, such as 4 profiles, merges into one customer with a single confirmation and uses 3 merges.

Automatic merging stays off until you switch it on. When it’s on, it merges strong matches, and you choose whether to add groups that need your judgment. You can also list tags it skips. Protected profiles are never merged automatically, and automatic work stops before your allowance runs out. Automatic merging is on the Growth, Scale and Enterprise plans.

If any of the merged profiles is subscribed to email or SMS marketing, the merged customer stays subscribed, as in Shopify’s own merge. That’s why every merge starts with evidence and a decision: your confirmation, or automatic merging you switched on for strong matches or groups that need your judgment.

3. Shopify verifies

MergeGuard merges through Shopify. After the merge, it shows “Shopify is verifying the result.” until Shopify has verified the merged customer, then “Shopify verified the merged customer.” Every merge ends with Shopify’s verification.

4. History records it

Every change is saved in History. Each merge record shows:

• the customer kept and each customer merged away
• the details kept
• the Klaviyo outcome of each merged customer
• “Verified” with the time
• a snapshot of each merged customer

Search History by customer name, email or ID, and filter by What happened, Who did it, Result, and a From and To date. History is a record of what happened. It doesn’t reverse a merge.

What can be undone

One customer, start to finish

In our demo store, Northsail Supply, Shopify shows Amelia Hughes as 3 customers with 4, 3 and 2 orders Demo store (Northsail Supply). MergeGuard groups the three profiles and shows the matching details. You choose what to keep and confirm. Shopify verifies the merge, and Amelia becomes one customer with 9 orders Demo store (Northsail Supply). History keeps the record and a snapshot of each profile.

You saw the match. You chose. Shopify verified. History recorded it.

For more on what MergeGuard will and won’t do, read Is MergeGuard safe?. To see what each plan includes, go to Pricing.