One customer account

Each customer is one Shopify customer account on your store and your site. RedeemID keys their WordPress user to that account’s Shopify ID, not to an email address, so the same customer always comes back to the same WordPress user. That holds whether or not the site gates anything.

What it gives you

• One sign-in. Customers sign in to WordPress through Shopify, and signing out ends both sessions. See Member accounts.
• No password for new members. A customer new to your site gets a WordPress user with no usable password and no password reset, so there is nothing on the WordPress side to phish, leak or reuse.
• One record for support. No more asking whether someone is the subscriber or the buyer. Staff open a customer on RedeemID → Customers and see the account as Shopify last sent it, with a link to it in the Shopify admin. Access → Test answers why a reader can or can’t open a page.
• One place to disable. Disabling a customer in Shopify takes away members-only access on the site (limits below).
• One identity for privacy requests. Export and erasure cover the WordPress copy of the account, and Shopify’s own privacy requests reach the same user. See Privacy.
• Consent and purchase summary. The customer’s email and SMS marketing consent and Shopify’s purchase summary are copied to the WordPress user, for newsletter and member tools that read them.

Sign-in needs no access levels. The built-in Signed in level gates a page to anyone with an account, and anything more is optional.

Limits

• It doesn’t merge accounts people already have. An existing WordPress user links only when Shopify marks the email as verified and it matches the WordPress email. A customer whose Shopify and WordPress emails differ can’t link until one is changed. Administrators are never linked.
• A customer can choose a separate account. When a signing-in customer’s email belongs to an existing WordPress account, they’re asked whether to link it. No thanks, use a separate account gives them a new WordPress user, and the old one stays as it was.
• Linked users keep their WordPress login. Linking doesn’t remove a WordPress password, so an existing user can still sign in the old way. Only users RedeemID created are passwordless.
• Shopify merges are followed, not cleaned up. When Shopify merges two customers, RedeemID points the surviving customer at one WordPress user. If both had one, the merged-away user is kept, unlinked.
• A disable arrives only by webhook. Shopify’s customers/disable webhook carries it. An account RedeemID created is then signed out of WordPress; a linked WordPress user loses member access but keeps their WordPress login. A resync re-reads tags but can’t see a disable, so if that webhook is lost, remove the customer’s tags in Shopify or disconnect them on RedeemID → Customers.

Account security moves to Shopify

One account opening both your store and your site means its security matters twice. Shopify signs customers in, usually with a one-time code sent to their email, so whoever controls a customer’s inbox can sign in as them on both. RedeemID never sees how a customer signs in to Shopify.

On the WordPress side, RedeemID keeps the customer’s Shopify tokens encrypted inside their WordPress session, never sends them to the browser, and removes them on sign-out, disconnect and erasure. See Security for the rest.