Segment customers who have never ordered in Shopify
More than a quarter of this store's customer list has never placed an order: mailing-list sign-ups, account creators, and shoppers who left a checkout unfinished. They are contacts, not buyers, and they need a different first message than a repeat customer. This tutorial builds a segment of customers with zero orders.
Written · Shopify admin, desktop steps · 4 minutes read
The worked example
| Customers in the store | 214 |
| Never ordered | 58 |
| Share never ordered | 27.10% |
| Of them, email subscribers | 41 |
| Share subscribed | 70.69% |
Download the segment worksheet: never-ordered-segment.csv (228 bytes, md5 100169499653b17b2ba125f67b6d8be7).
A worksheet of eight sample customers from the never-ordered segment: whether each one is an email subscriber. 6 of the 8 sample rows are subscribers.
1Open the segment editor
From your Shopify admin, go to Customers, click Segments, then click Create segment. The query editor opens with the default query in place.
2Add the zero-orders filter
Click into the WHERE area, pick the filter number_of_orders, pick the operator =, and enter the value 0. The full line reads WHERE number_of_orders = 0.
3Run the query and read the count
Click Run query. The matching customers list below the editor and the count shows above it. The worked example shows 58 customers with zero orders out of 214. Scan the list: it should hold mailing-list sign-ups and abandoned checkouts, not buyers.
4Narrow to subscribers before you email them
Optional, and worth doing before any campaign: add AND email_subscription_status = 'SUBSCRIBED'. In the worked example that leaves 41 of the 58, the ones you can email. A never-ordered customer who never subscribed is not a mailing list.
5Save the segment
Review the AI-generated description, then click Save segment, name it Never ordered, and click Save.
The arithmetic
The store has 214 customers.
| Group | Customers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Never ordered | 58 | 27.10% |
| Ordered at least once | 156 | 72.90% |
| All customers | 214 | 100.00% |
| Never ordered and subscribed | 41 | 70.69% of the 58 |
58 plus 156 equals 214. 58 divided by 214 is 27.10%. Of the 58 who never ordered, 41 are email subscribers, and 41 divided by 58 is 70.69%.
Held at the counter
Never ordered includes more than subscribers. The segment holds mailing-list sign-ups, account creators, and people who abandoned a checkout. They are contacts with different histories, so read the list before you write to it as one group.
Do not email the unsubscribed 17. 58 minus 41 leaves 17 never-ordered customers who are not email subscribers. They are not a mailing list, and emailing them anyway is how spam complaints start.
The segment shrinks on its own. A customer who places a first order leaves the segment without any edit from you. A count that falls month to month is usually a good sign, not a broken segment.
Sources
- Creating customer segments — Shopify's help pages: the query editor, the Run query preview, and the save steps.
- Components of a customer segment — Shopify's help pages: filter names, operators, and values, including number_of_orders, and the AND connector.