【Delete Me】Detecting Re-Logins by Withdrawn Shop Pay Users — How We're Addressing the Masked Email Address Problem

What is Shop Pay?

Shop Pay is a payment service provided by Shopify. It lets shoppers save their email address and shipping information in advance, enabling a smooth, fast checkout experience.

Behind that convenience lies a specification that store owners should be aware of. Shop Pay accounts can only be managed by the account holder themselves. This meant that Shop Pay users who had withdrawn via Delete Me would continue purchasing using the masked email address assigned to them at the time of withdrawal — every time they returned to the same store.

⚠ Impact on store owners

Emails from marketing automation (MA) tools cannot be delivered to masked email addresses. In some cases, this also causes issues with managing customer lists in those tools.

What was happening when a withdrawn user logged back in

Until now, the following sequence was causing problems:

① Withdrawal via Delete Me — customer data deleted, but Shop Pay account remains

② Re-login via Shop Pay — the withdrawn user revisits the store and makes a purchase

③ The problem occurs — the order is completed under the still-masked email address

Because Delete Me had no way to detect the re-login, a user who had already withdrawn was able to make another purchase via Shop Pay — and that purchase would be recorded under a masked address.

Shop Pay is a third-party service focused on shopping. Even if a customer's data is deleted on the Shopify side through Delete Me, the Shop Pay account itself remains active. This made it possible for a withdrawn user to log back in with the same Shop Pay account and complete a purchase.

When that re-purchase occurs, the email address recorded in the order data is once again a masked one — the deleted email address. Distinguishing this from a regular order is difficult for the store, leaving re-purchases by withdrawn users effectively invisible.

The new Delete Me feature: re-login detection for withdrawn users

With this update, Delete Me can now automatically detect when a withdrawn Shop Pay user logs back into the store.

The feature works in three key ways:

POINT 01 — Matching and detection on re-login

When a withdrawn user logs back into the store via Shop Pay, Delete Me detects the event and flags it as a "re-login by a withdrawn user."

POINT 02 — An app block prompting the user to update their information

When a withdrawn Shop Pay user re-logs in, an app block can be displayed on the storefront to prompt them to update their information.

POINT 03 — A tag applied at re-login

A tag — shop_pay_reactivated — is applied to the customer upon re-login. By searching for this tag in customer management, store administrators can identify which users have logged back in, even if the user has not updated their information in the store.

What this feature changes

This update brings the following improvements:

• Re-purchases by withdrawn users no longer go unnoticed as "invisible orders"

• Masked addresses can be prevented from accumulating unintentionally over time

• Post-withdrawal customer data management can be maintained more appropriately from a GDPR and personal data protection standpoint

• Store owners gain visibility into the behavior of withdrawn users and can consider how to respond

Important note

This feature applies to users whose withdrawal was processed by Delete Me. Deleting a Shop Pay account itself must be done by the Shop Pay user directly within Shopify's / Shop Pay's own services. Delete Me is an app that supports customer data management within a Shopify store.

In closing

As Shop Pay becomes more widely used, inquiries and concerns around masked email addresses are growing among Shopify store owners. Delete Me is continuously updating to address these challenges.

In Japanese e-commerce, proper handling of personal data protection is a critical factor in a store's trustworthiness. Delete Me will continue to go beyond simply providing an account deletion feature — responding to the challenges that arise from integrations with third-party services like Shop Pay.