Overview
Mortar syncs customer details linked to new Shopify orders, refunds, or manually updated customers to your POS. Mortar also syncs basic customer details from new and updated POS customers to Shopify.
Note: Mortar does not sync loyalty program details.
Customers are matched to existing customers
Mortar matches customers between platforms to prevent duplicates. If no match is found, a new customer will be created.
The "Customer matching" setting controls the priority of matching when creating customers in POS. It is configured to first search for an existing customer using either email, phone number, or a combination of both. Options include:
Email, phone (default)
Phone, Email
Email-only
Phone only
Note: Mortar will create a new customer in your POS if a customer uses a different email and/or phone number in Shopify than in-store. This is not a duplicate customer record.
Phone matching - Shopify and your POS accept phone numbers in various formats.
Shopify considers any phone number that can be dialed using E.164 format valid. Each of the following examples is considered valid for the same phone number in Shopify:
6135551212
+16135551212
(613)555-1212
+1 613-555-1212
Mortar strips out extra characters and uses only the numbers when matching phone numbers, ignoring the +1, parentheses, and dashes.
Learn more: Customer Matching
Creating new customers
If an existing customer record does not exist in your POS when an order is created, Mortar will create the customer record using the following fields:
First Name
Last Name
Birthday
Phone Number 1 (Mobile Phone in Heartland, Home Number in Lightspeed R-Series, Phone in Lightspeed X-Series)
Address
Email address 1
Customer Tag: "Shopify" and your Mortar account name (Example: shopifyteststore)
Email Marketing Opt in/out
Note: Heartland Retail requires an email and a complete physical address to add a customer via the API. If Heartland's validation blocks a customer from being created or the order from being invoiced, you may need to update the customer's address before the order can be completed.
Updating existing customers
If the customer exists, Mortar will update these fields on customer contact if any information does not match the most recent update:
First Name
Last Name
Birthday
Phone Number 1 (Mobile Phone in Heartland, Home Number in Lightspeed R-Series, Phone in Lightspeed X-Series)
Address
Email address 1
Email Marketing Opt in/out
To prevent names from updating (which can cause deadnaming) when updating customers, contact Mortar Support.
Duplicate customer matches
Shopify requires a unique email or phone number on each customer record.
Most POS platforms do not require customer email or phone to be unique, allowing multiple customers to share the same email or phone number. Mortar links to the first matching customer record found in your POS if multiple customers share the same email or phone number.
Fortunately, fixing duplicate customer records in your POS is easy. You can:
Update each duplicate customer to make their contact information unique or
Archive or Merge the duplicate customers into one unique record for that customer ( See more Merging and Archiving customers below )
Addresses
Billing Address
Shopify customer addresses are considered the primary account or billing address and are synced to the POS customer profile using the abovementioned fields.
Shipping Address
A Shopify order's shipping address is sometimes different than the billing address. The shipping address is uploaded to the customer shipping address and will be visible on the order in the POS.
Set a Default customer for Heartland Retail
Heartland Retail requires basic customer info on each customer. The default customer is used in cases where a customer is either missing from a Shopify order or the customer info is incomplete.
Example Use
Heartland Retail requires Shipping and Billing addresses for orders to be completed.
When saving an order from Shopify POS with either no associated Customer ID or incomplete customer information, all the default customer's contact information like address, email, phone information, etc., will be applied to sales sent to Heartland Retail.
This ensures that the order is created and can be invoiced.
Note: The Default customer does NOT protect against a normal customer profile that is missing an address. It also cannot be used to anonymize customers on orders or intentionally limit customer information synced to a POS.
Creating a default customer
To create a default customer, manually create a customer record in Shopify. We recommend naming the customer "Default Customer" for clarity. The default customer should include a default Name, Email, Phone, and must include at least one address to pass validation in Heartland(we recommend using one of your store addresses).
Locate the customer ID number when viewing the default customer's Shopify URL. Copy/paste this number into the Accumula setting: Default Customer ID (See Shopify Settings further below).
Example Customer URL
The Customer ID is the string of numbers at the end of the URL
Marketing opt-in/out
For Shopify and Lightspeed Retail (R-Series) Mortar honors both email and SMS marketing opt-in/outs
For Lightspeed Retail (X-Series)and Heartland Retail, Mortar supports Email opt-in/outs
Merged and Archived customers
Merged POS customers are generally self-healing. Depending on the POS solution, Mortar stores the status as either Active, Archived, or Deleted.
Inventory Source | Customer archive status |
Lightspeed Retail (R-Series) | Archived |
Lightspeed Retail (X-Series) | Deleted |
Heartland Retail | Archived |
Note: If a customer is unarchived in Lightspeed Retail (R-Series) and Heartland Retail, Mortar can recover the customer. It is not possible to recover a deleted customer in Lightspeed Retail (X-Series)
When a Shopify order is downloaded, Mortar checks the status of the customer before creating the order in the POS.
Customer Status | Matching Result |
Active | Link to the existing POS customer |
Archived/Deleted | Mortar deletes the current mapping and searches for a new customer match by:
|
GDPR and CCPA requests
GDPR, CCPA, and other privacy requests can be made in Shopify from the More actions menu on the customer record or via email to [email protected]. Please be sure to note the privacy legislation that is the basis of your request.