Playbook
Subscribers who buy outside their subscription
A subscriber who also buys the same product one-time, perhaps under a second profile, may be leaving. Treat these as signs, never predictions, and check the person’s order history across every profile before you act. Decide what to do in your own tools, because MergeGuard sends nothing and changes no subscription.
By MergeGuard team
Last updated
3 min read
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A subscription profile shows what the subscriber receives on schedule. It cannot show what the same person buys on their own. When the one-time orders sit on another profile, the subscription looks healthy while the customer’s buying has moved.
Key insight
The signs sit in order history across profiles, and a single profile hides them.
The signs
No source we found tests which behaviors predict a cancellation, so we call these signs and not predictions. They are patterns worth a second look.
Buying the product separately
The subscriber orders the same product one-time. They still want it, and they may be avoiding the plan.
Skipping or delaying deliveries
Repeated skips may mean the plan no longer matches how they use the product.
Stopped, still buying
The subscription ended, and orders continue on this or another profile.
The one-line meanings above are our reading of what each pattern suggests. They are reasoning, and any one of them can have an ordinary explanation.
Where the second account hides
A second profile forms for the same reasons any duplicate does. The shopper types a different email, checks out as a guest, or uses a phone number one time and an email the next. The causes are laid out in the guide to guest checkout and duplicate customers.
For a subscriber the result is easy to picture.
Worked example (made up)
One person, several profiles
Two profiles on Shopify, one customer who buys the same product both ways.
Worked example (made up)
Count across profiles
The count has three parts. First, the number of subscribers. Second, how many of them hold a second profile. Third, how many of those show a sign from the lists above. Each part is a subset of the one before.
In MergeGuard’s demo store: 412 subscribers → 38 with a second account → 21 showing signs Demo store (Northsail Supply). The second number matters most for planning. A profile-by-profile report sees every subscription profile, and it cannot show which of those people also order somewhere else.
To do the same count by hand, export your customers, group the profiles that look like one person, and mark the groups that include a subscription. Keep the strongest signals first: the same phone number, then a near-identical email, then the same name and address.
What to check before you act
Read the whole history
Put the subscription deliveries and the one-time orders in date order, across every profile of the person.
Rule out a gift or people who live together
A partner or flatmate may order the same product on a separate profile. They are different people, and neither is leaving.
Check for a failed payment
A declined card can end a subscription while the customer carries on buying. See failed payments on Shopify subscriptions.
Check the dates
Orders from before the subscription started say little about what the subscriber does now.
The guide to failed payments on Shopify subscriptions covers the payment case. If the two profiles belong to one person, Shopify will not merge a profile that has had a subscription contract, so the profiles usually stay apart and you read them together.
What to do
What you do next is up to you and your own tools. Some merchants write to the subscriber, others change what the plan offers, and many leave a one-off buyer alone. We found no study that shows which response works, so we don’t recommend one.
MergeGuard sends nothing and changes no subscription. Check in your own email tool who may be emailed before you send anything. Help lists the Subscription lists in MergeGuard.
Step by step
List your subscribers
Start from the profiles that hold a subscription contract. Each one is a person to check.
Find their other profiles
Look for a second profile with the same phone number, a near-identical email or the same name and address.
Read the combined order history
Put the subscription deliveries and the one-time orders side by side, in date order.
Rule out the exceptions
Gifts, people who live together and a failed payment can each look like leaving. Check them before you decide.
Decide what to do
Act in your own email or support tools, or leave the subscriber alone.
Sources
Related
- How Shopify subscriptions work: selling plans, contracts and billing attemptsHow Shopify subscriptions fit together: selling plans, contracts and billing attempts, what customers can do, and where a second account causes trouble.
- Failed payments on Shopify subscriptions: retries and what happens nextWhat happens when a Shopify subscription payment fails: the retry settings you can change, the final action when every retry fails, and a second account check.
- Duplicate profiles and subscriptions: why a subscriber’s second account mattersShopify won’t merge a profile that has, or has ever had, a subscription contract. See what that means for a subscriber’s second account and how to count them.
- Guest checkout and duplicate customers in ShopifyWhy guest checkout splits one shopper across several Shopify profiles, how to find those duplicates safely, and what Shopify’s merge rules mean.
- AudiencesMergeGuard Audiences count each Shopify customer once across duplicate profiles, with lists for newsletters, win-back, VIPs and subscribers who may cancel.
- Build an audience list that counts each person oncePick a ready Audiences list, adjust its rules with a live preview, then sync it to Klaviyo or export a CSV. See which audience each MergeGuard plan includes.