Summary
Keep your customer data accurate, consistent, and ready for action with bi-directional Shopify integration in Wati. This feature automatically syncs new customers, profile updates, tags, and consent preferences between both platforms in real time. With everything aligned, you can build precise WhatsApp audiences, reduce manual data entry, prevent duplicate profiles, and ensure your engagement campaigns are always powered by up-to-date customer information.
Instructions
What’s new?
Wati now supports bi-directional customer profile synchronization with Shopify.
This includes:
Automatic Shopify → Wati sync
New Shopify customers and profile updates are automatically reflected in Wati.
Automatic Wati → Shopify sync
New inbound WhatsApp contacts in Wati are checked against Shopify and created or updated when needed.
Historical customer import
You can run a one-time import of existing Shopify customers.
Why integrate Shopify with Wati?
Bi-directional sync helps you:
Keep customer profiles and consent data aligned across platforms
Build accurate WhatsApp campaign audiences using Shopify attributes
Automatically capture WhatsApp-first customers inside Shopify
Reduce manual data entry and avoid duplicate profiles
What does customer sync do?
Customer sync keeps key profile attributes synchronized between Shopify and Wati in real time.
If a customer is created or updated in one platform, the changes are reflected in the other (based on the defined mapping rules).
Shopify → Wati customer sync
When this is enabled:
Newly created Shopify customers are automatically created in Wati (phone number is required).
Updates to supported customer properties are synced to Wati.
Attribute mapping
Shopify property | Wati attribute |
| Phone number |
| |
| Allow campaign |
| Boolean attributes (one per tag) |
How tags work
Each Shopify tag becomes a boolean attribute in Wati.
If a tag is added → the attribute is set to true.
If a tag is removed → the attribute is set to false or left empty.
This allows you to segment contacts in Wati using Shopify tag logic.
Historical customer import
You can perform a one-time import of existing Shopify customers into Wati.
Available options:
Import all customers
Import customers created in the last 1 month
Import customers created in the last 3 months
Import customers created in the last 6 months
This is useful when enabling the integration for the first time and you want past customer data available in Wati.
Wati → Shopify customer sync
When a new inbound WhatsApp message is received from a contact that is not yet synced:
Wati checks Shopify using the phone number.
If not found, it checks using the email address.
If a match is found → the Shopify profile is enriched with missing data.
If no match is found → a new Shopify customer is created.
Additional behavior
Newly created Shopify customers from Wati are marked as
emailSubscribed = true.Updates to synced attributes are reflected back in Shopify.
Duplicate profiles are prevented by checking both phone number and email before creation.
How to enable bi-directional sync
Follow these steps in Wati:
Go to Connectors → Integration → Shopify.
Select Customer Profile Sync from the left menu.
Click Enable customer profile sync.
Toggle Enable Bi-Directional Sync of Customer Profiles to ON.
(Optional) Click Sync now to import historical customer profiles.
Select the desired time range from the dropdown.
By default, it is set to all customer profiles.
Once the sync is complete, you can view imported and synced contacts under Contacts.
What happens when sync is disabled?
If you turn off bi-directional sync:
No new customers will be created across platforms.
Existing synced data remains unchanged.
Historical import cannot be triggered while sync is disabled.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. Do all Shopify customers get synced to Wati automatically?
No. Only Shopify customers with a valid phone number are synced to Wati. Customers without phone numbers are skipped.
2. Can I import existing Shopify customers into Wati?
Yes. You can run a one-time historical import and choose:
All customers
Customers created in the last 1 month
Customers created in the last 3 months
Customers created in the last 6 months
3. What happens if a Shopify customer updates their details?
Any updates to synced attributes (such as phone, email, consent, or tags) are automatically reflected in Wati.
4. How are Shopify tags handled in Wati?
Each Shopify tag is converted into a boolean attribute in Wati:
Tag added → attribute set to true
Tag removed → attribute set to false or empty
5. What happens when a new WhatsApp contact messages but does not exist in Shopify?
Wati will:
Search Shopify using the phone number.
If not found → search using the email.
If still not found → create a new Shopify customer.
6. Will existing Shopify customers be duplicated when sync is enabled?
No. Before creating a customer, Wati checks Shopify using phone number and email to prevent duplication.
7. Are consent preferences synced between Shopify and Wati?
Yes. Shopify email marketing consent is mapped to the Allow campaign attribute in Wati and remains synchronized.
8. What happens if I turn off bi-directional sync?
New customers will not be synced across platforms.
Existing synced data remains unchanged.
Historical import cannot be triggered.
9. Can I control which properties are synced?
Currently, property mapping is predefined for core attributes such as phone, email, consent, and tags.
10. Is historical import repeatable?
No. Historical import is designed as a one-time operation to prevent duplicate processing of customer records.