“Delete Me,” a Shopify App That Enables Customer Data Deletion and My Page Account Cancellation via UI

We are pleased to announce the addition of new features to the Shopify app “Delete Me”, developed by our company. The app is introduced below.

Currently, Shopify alone does not allow customers to “cancel their account” from their My Page, including deleting their customer information.

Specifically:

• Due to Shopify's specifications, customers associated with orders cannot be deleted.
• Shopify's “Erase personal data” feature was introduced in the context of GDPR and does not allow for immediate deletion.
• Customer data associated with orders processed through a payment provider cannot be deleted.
• Although it is possible to change the customer associated with an order, doing so can be difficult without the necessary expertise.
• There is no “account cancellation” function available to customers themselves.

As the protection of personal information on the internet continues to be an important issue, we believe that many Shopify users have faced difficulties when they needed to delete or mask customer information. Furthermore, because customers cannot cancel their accounts themselves from their My Page, customer support teams have traditionally had to handle these requests. If customers could simply click a “Cancel Account” button themselves, this could help reduce the workload of customer support teams. Based on these challenges, Flagship Inc. developed “Delete Me,” an app that enables customer personal information to be deleted and allows customers to cancel their accounts themselves from their My Page. In this article, we would like to introduce the “Delete Me” app.

The Value Delete Me Brings to Your E-Commerce Site

① Personal Information Deletion

Currently, Shopify does not allow customers associated with orders to be deleted. The reasons include:

• Shopify's “Erase personal data” feature was introduced in the context of GDPR and therefore does not allow for immediate deletion.
• Customer data associated with orders processed through a payment provider cannot be deleted.
• Customer information associated with an order may be changeable in some cases, but doing so requires extensive knowledge.

However, the Delete Me app allows you to perform a logical deletion from the admin panel.

Delete Me Can Delete Customers' Personal Information

Delete Me uses a method called logical deletion to remove customers' personal information. Logical deletion is a masking technique that makes it impossible to identify an individual while retaining the customer's data. Specifically, information such as names and email addresses is replaced with unpredictable strings such as “***.” In this way, we have developed a method that protects customer privacy while retaining customer data.

How to Perform a Logical Deletion

Personal information deletion is available even on the Ecosystem Plan (free). A “Logically Delete” button is added to the customer details page in the Delete Me admin panel. Clicking this button logically deletes the customer's information. When a customer is deleted from the customer management screen, no account cancellation notification email is sent to the customer.

Before Logical Deletion

After Logical Deletion

② Self-Service Account Cancellation from My Page

Previously, there was no “Cancel Account” function on the customer's My Page, so account cancellation requests had to be handled through customer inquiries.

With the Delete Me app, account cancellation from My Page can be made self-service. By making the process self-service, this task, which was previously handled by customer support, can be automated, helping reduce the workload of support teams.

Account cancellation from My Page is a feature of the Automation Plan (paid).

How to Cancel an Account from My Page

With the Automation Plan (paid), you can add an “Account Cancellation” page or button to your My Page. When customers cancel their accounts themselves, they receive an account cancellation notification email.

More Useful Features of Delete Me

• Supports Japanese, English, and Spanish.
• After logical deletion/account cancellation, the deleted_accounts (deleted account) tag is added, allowing you to create filters for cancelled customers using the deleted_accounts tag.
• After logical deletion/account cancellation, tags such as deleted_at: YYYY/MM/DD and deleted_datetime:XXXX are also added, which can be used to check and manage the account cancellation date.
• After logical deletion, a deletedBy_ip-XXXX tag is added to indicate that the logical deletion was performed from “Customer Management.”
• The notification email logo and email text can be configured from the settings screen.
• With the Automation Plan, the app itself provides webhook functionality. By entering a destination URL in the app settings, you can send notifications to external systems that need to delete personal information whenever a logical deletion or account cancellation occurs. Integration with Dotdigital and Klaviyo is also available.

Available Shopify Plans

The app is available on all Shopify plans (Lite, Basic, Shopify, Advanced, and Plus).

Delete Me Plans and Features

Ecosystem Plan	Automation Plan
Free	$29.99/month
・Logically delete customer information from the admin panel ・Display customer tags after account cancellation	・All features of the Free Plan ・Add an account cancellation page/button to the Shopify store's My Page ・Webhook notifications after account cancellation/logical deletion ・Address book integration with Dotdigital and Klaviyo after account cancellation/logical deletion

New users can use the Automation Plan free of charge for 7 days.

(Available to install from the Shopify App Store)

■ Contact Us

Flagship Inc.
Delete Me Support Team
Email: support@flagship.cc