> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Customers with Zero Spend, Shopify > Customers with Zero Spend for Shopify stores. Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it. **Metrics type:** [Supporting Metrics](/nerve-centre/overview#metrics-types-explained) • **Category:** [Ecommerce Platform](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type) ## At a glance > Customers in the database whose lifetime spend is £0 (have an account but no purchase). The dormant-account count; reveals signup-without-conversion friction or stale list inflation. | | | | ----------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | **What it counts** | `COUNT(customers WHERE numberOfOrders = 0 OR amountSpent.amount = 0)`. Denominator is total customer base; ratio surfaced as percentage. | | **VAT / tax treatment** | Not applicable, count metric. | | **Shipping** | Not applicable. | | **Discounts** | Not applicable. | | **Refunds** | A customer with one order fully refunded shows as zero spend (gross spend was non-zero, but Shopify's `amountSpent` is net). | | **Cancelled / voided orders** | Cancelled-pre-payment customers show as zero spend; consistent. | | **Currency** | Not applicable. | | **Channels / sources** | Customer-level state regardless of order channel. POS-walk-in customers with email-capture but no completed purchase appear here. | | **Time window** | `RT` (real-time, computed from latest customer-state snapshot). | | **Alert trigger** | `>20% of base` triggers `zero_spend` sentiment key. | | **Roles** | owner, marketing | ## Calculation Calculated automatically from your Shopify data. See the At a glance summary above for what the metric tracks and the worked example below for a typical reading. ## Worked example A US activewear DTC brand on Shopify, \~32,000 customer base. Snapshot 12 May 26. | Cohort | Count | Share | | ---------------------------------------- | ---------- | -------- | | Customers with at least one order ever | 21,400 | 66.9% | | Customers with zero spend (account-only) | 10,600 | 33.1% | | **Total customers** | **32,000** | **100%** | The card reads `33.1%`, **13.1 ppt above the 20% threshold**. Six things to notice: 1. **The alert is firing.** 33% zero-spend is well above healthy norms. For a DTC apparel brand, target 10-25% zero-spend (room-for-acquisition without bloating list). 2. **The cohort is recoverable.** 10,600 customers have an account but never bought; they signed up because of email-discount, contest entry, account-creation prompt, or download-gate. Most are recoverable with a welcome flow that converts to first purchase. 3. **Marketing-spend trap.** If you pay Klaviyo or another email tool per active profile, 10k zero-spenders are dead weight. List-pruning saves cost and improves deliverability metrics. 4. **Recovery campaign opportunity.** A reactivation campaign (welcome-discount + showcase products + social proof) targeting zero-spenders typically converts 2-5%. 10,600 customers × 3% = 318 incremental customers from a single campaign. 5. **Imported customer artifact.** If you migrated from Mailchimp or another platform recently, many zero-spenders may be email-only subscribers, not Shopify customers in the conversion sense. Consider whether they should be tagged differently. 6. **The "zero spend" definition matters.** A customer who bought £100 and refunded £100 shows as zero spend. Pair with order-history to differentiate "never bought" from "bought and fully refunded". ## Sibling cards merchants should reference together Zero Spend is the dormant-account count. Companions: | Card | Why pair it with Zero Spend | | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [Customer Count](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/unique-customers) | Denominator. | | [Unverified Emails](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/unverified-email-customers) | Subset overlap; zero-spenders often haven't opted in to marketing either. | | [New Customers](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/new-customers) | Inverse cousin; new customers convert from zero-spend to spend in 7-30 days post-signup. | | [Repeat Customer Rate](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/repeat-customer-rate) | Customers convert from zero-spend (signup) → first-time → repeat over time. | | [Customer Trend](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/customer-acquisition-trend) | Aggregate growth; zero-spend share trend reveals signup-vs-conversion gaps. | | [Email Health](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/email-health) | Aggregate email health; zero-spenders often have unhealthy email profiles. | | [Churn Risk](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/shopify/customer-churn-risk) | Different cohort; zero-spenders are pre-conversion, not at-risk. | ## Reconciling against the vendor's own dashboard **Where to look in Shopify Admin:** > **Shopify Admin → Customers** filtered by *Number of orders is 0* OR *Total spent is 0* The most direct equivalent. Sum the matching count and divide by total customer count. Other Shopify Admin views: * **Customer segments**: build a segment for "no purchases yet" customers. * **Apps like Klaviyo, Hubspot, Reactivate**: their dashboards expose dormant cohorts and reactivation tools. **Why our number may legitimately differ from Shopify Admin:** | Reason | Direction | Why | | -------------------- | ----------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | **Customer linking** | Either | Identity-resolution edge cases sometimes resolve in Shopify and not in our index. | | **Refund treatment** | Either | A customer with all orders refunded shows as zero-spend in some Shopify views; behaviour depends on `amountSpent` field. | | **Sync lag** | Either, transient | Customer-state updates lag 5-30 min during heavy edits. | **Cross-connector reconciliation:** | Card | Expected relationship | What causes legitimate divergence | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | [`klaviyo.kl_inactive_subscribers`](/nerve-centre/klaviyo/kl_inactive_subscribers) (when connected) | Should overlap meaningfully | Klaviyo measures email-engagement-inactive; Shopify measures purchase-inactive. Different definitions; intersect for the highest-priority reactivation cohort. | | [`hubspot.hb_unconverted_leads`](/nerve-centre/hubspot/hb_unconverted_leads) | Indirect | CRM cousin for B2B-leaning brands. | ***
Documentation cross-reference (for agencies running multiple platforms) * [`bigcommerce.zero_spend`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/bigcommerce/customers-with-zero-spend) * [`adobe_commerce.zero_spend`](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/adobe-commerce/customers-with-zero-spend)
## Known limitations / merchant FAQs **Why is my zero-spend rate so high?** Three usual causes: 1. **Email-capture popup-driven signups**: customers signed up for the WELCOME10 code, never converted. Common; 60-80% of popup signups never buy. 2. **Account-creation gating**: requiring account creation to access certain pages or features creates accounts without purchase intent. 3. **Email-list import**: customers imported from Mailchimp / Klaviyo / past CRM with no purchase history. **What's a healthy zero-spend rate?** Category-dependent rough guides: * **Acquisition-heavy DTC**: 25-40%. Heavy popup-driven signups. The reactivation challenge is real. * **Subscription brands**: 5-15%. Customers usually buy on first visit (subscription is the buy). * **Marketplace-cross-listed brands**: 30-50%. Many email-only signups for offers. * **Hybrid retail with POS email-capture**: 30-45%. In-store email captures often don't convert online. **Should I purge zero-spenders?** Not aggressively. The right approach: 1. **Try reactivation campaign first**: target with a strong offer (e.g. 25% off first order, free gift with purchase). Conversion typically 2-5%. 2. **Wait 6-12 months**: if no conversion after multiple campaigns, the customer is unlikely to buy. 3. **Tier-based pruning**: keep recent zero-spenders (\<6 months); prune old (>12 months) without engagement. **Does this card include POS walk-ins without email?** No. POS customers without email-capture aren't created as Shopify customer records, so they don't appear in either numerator or denominator. The card measures the email-captured customer base only. **Why does this matter for marketing-tool costs?** Klaviyo, Mailchimp, and similar tools price based on active profile count. 10,000 zero-spenders sitting on the list cost the same as 10,000 paying customers but generate no revenue. Pruning improves cost-per-active-customer. **Action playbook for zero-spenders:** 1. **Welcome-flow review**: confirm the welcome flow (1-3 emails) is firing for all signups. Optimise the discount code, social proof, hero products. 2. **Reactivation campaign**: target zero-spenders aged 30-180 days with a stronger offer. 3. **Pruning policy**: define when to prune (e.g. >12 months no purchase + no email engagement); execute quarterly. 4. **Signup-source tagging**: use Shopify customer tags to identify popup vs other sources; lifetime conversion may differ by source. 5. **Cost monitoring**: track per-active-customer marketing tool spend; rising zero-spend share inflates this. 6. **Conversion measurement**: post-reactivation campaign, watch how many zero-spenders converted; refine offer based on results. *** ### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre *Customers with Zero Spend* is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Shopify and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. [Start for free](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.