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Zero-Party Data on Shopify: How to Collect It in Customer Accounts

Learn what zero-party data is, which fields a Shopify store can collect, and how to gather it in New Customer Accounts with consent and no code.

14 min read

Zero-party data is information a customer deliberately tells you: preferences, intentions, sizes, pet names, how often they want to hear from you. On Shopify, the most natural place to collect it is the customer account, because the shopper is logged in, expects to manage their details, and can come back to update them. This guide covers what counts as zero-party data, which fields are worth asking for, how to set them up in New Customer Accounts, and what to tell customers before you collect anything.

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TL;DR

  • Zero-party data is information customers proactively and intentionally share, unlike first-party behavioral data (clicks, purchases) or third-party data bought from outside sources.
  • The customer account is a strong collection point: the shopper is authenticated, and the data can live in customer metafields inside Shopify.
  • Ask only for what will change the experience: if an answer triggers no action, it is friction.
  • Tell customers what you collect and why, and record consent through Shopify’s customer privacy tools. Compliance stays your responsibility.
  • With AccountCraft you build the account fields visually, with no code and no theme changes. There is a free plan to start.

Table of Contents

What zero-party data means for a Shopify store

The definition is simple. Zero-party data is what a customer chooses to share. First-party data is what you observe: browsing, clicks and purchase history. Third-party data comes from outside sources you do not control.

The practical difference is that you do not have to interpret zero-party data. A customer who tells you they are shopping for a gift for a dog under 20 pounds has told you exactly what to show them. Analysts at TechTarget make the same point: explicit answers need no analysis, unlike behavioral data.

Shopify’s own guidance lists what this looks like in a store: preference-center selections, quiz and poll responses, feedback forms, chatbot conversations, purchase intentions and goals. Klaviyo’s training material adds the simple profile details, such as first name, birthday, phone number and favorite color, that count when customers provide them directly.

Customer choosing preferences on her phone

If you want a quick mental test: did the customer type, tick or select it on purpose? Then it is zero-party data. Did you infer it from what they did? Then it is first-party data.

Why the customer account is the right place to collect it

Most stores collect zero-party data in one-off moments: a sign-up pop-up, a quiz, a post-purchase survey. Shopify lists account creation, post-purchase surveys, checkout and forms among the main collection points. Those moments work, but they share a weakness: the answer is captured once and the customer never sees it again.

The account page solves that. Three things make it different:

  1. The customer is authenticated. Shopify’s Customer Account API requires authentication for every request and scopes data to each store and customer. Preferences shown there belong to the person looking at them.
  2. The customer can correct the data. Zero-party data goes stale. A shopper’s size, household or budget changes. An editable account page keeps the answers current without a new survey.
  3. It supports consent and control. A page where people see and change what they shared is also where you can show what they agreed to.

This is the gap AccountCraft is built for. Shopify’s New Customer Accounts give shoppers a clean login and order history, but out of the box there is little room for custom fields. AccountCraft adds a visual Block Builder on top, using official Shopify Customer Account UI Extensions, so you do not edit your theme or write code. If you want the technical background, our post on no-code account UI extensions explains how this works.

A note on terminology: everything below assumes your store runs New Customer Accounts. If you are still on legacy customer accounts, migrating is the first step, because the extension-based approach only applies to New Customer Accounts.

What to ask for: fields that earn their place

The most common mistake is collecting everything you could think of. Veeform’s Shopify guide offers a clean test: ask only for information that can trigger a useful downstream action. If an answer will not change what the customer sees, receives or is offered, it adds friction and nothing else.

Here are field ideas grouped by the action they enable.

Preferences that change what you recommend

  • Favorite product categories or collections
  • Ingredient, material or style preferences
  • Who they usually shop for (self, partner, kids, gifts)

These map well to preference inputs and purchase intentions that Shopify-focused guides describe. You can use them for segmentation, email content and on-site merchandising.

Personal context that changes fit and relevance

  • Pet type, age and size
  • Skin or hair concerns
  • Vehicle make and model
  • Clothing sizes

These are often not single values. A household has two dogs, not one. A customer may own three vehicles. In AccountCraft this is what repeatable record lists are for: the customer adds, edits and removes entries (each pet, each car) and every entry holds its own fields.

Communication preferences that protect deliverability

  • Email frequency
  • Content type (new arrivals, sales, educational)
  • SMS opt-in

Asking how often someone wants to hear from you tends to cut unsubscribes more than it costs you in reach. It also leads directly into consent, covered below.

Structured answers beat free text

Klaviyo Academy recommends radio buttons or checkboxes over unrestricted text because predefined values keep data clean and make segmentation usable. A free-text “favorite color” field gives you “Blue”, “blue”, “navy” and “light blue-ish”. A dropdown gives you four segments you can actually target.

How to set it up in Shopify New Customer Accounts

Here is the practical sequence. Menu names in the Shopify admin can shift over time, so treat the paths as a guide.

Step 1: Confirm New Customer Accounts are on

In your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Customer accounts and check that New Customer Accounts is the active option. If your store still shows legacy customer accounts, plan the migration first. Our New Customer Accounts page walks through why merchants are making the switch.

Step 2: Define where the data will live

Zero-party data should sit in Shopify, not in a side database. Customer metafields are the right container. In the admin, open Settings > Custom data > Customers and add a definition for each field: a name, a type (single-line text, list, true/false, date) and, where it helps, allowed values.

Take a little time over naming. A field called pet_size with a fixed list of values is far easier to use in segments, flows and email personalization than a vague notes field.

Step 3: Install AccountCraft and build the page

Install AccountCraft from the Shopify App Store and open the Block Builder. AccountCraft offers 14 block types: text, banner, button, card, update form, single field, record list, SMS consent, privacy consent, wishlist, image, video, spacer and divider.

For a zero-party data page, a typical layout looks like this:

  1. A banner or text block explaining, in one or two sentences, why you ask and what the customer gets (better recommendations, fewer irrelevant emails).
  2. An update form block holding the preference fields, each bound to a customer metafield.
  3. A record list block for repeatable items such as pets or vehicles.
  4. A privacy consent block and, if you text customers, an SMS consent block.
  5. A wishlist block, which is itself a quiet form of zero-party data: the customer is telling you what they want.

Because fields are bound to customer metafields, whatever a customer enters is stored on their Shopify customer record. There is no separate customer database.

Step 4: Show the right fields to the right customers

Not every customer needs every question. AccountCraft supports conditional rendering by customer tag, metafield, market, B2B status and account age. Some practical uses:

  • Show a “tell us about your pets” card only to customers tagged pet-owner.
  • Hide the onboarding questions after a customer has answered them, by checking a metafield.
  • Show wholesale-specific fields only to B2B customers.
  • Ask new accounts a short welcome question, and give older accounts a different prompt.

This keeps the page short, which matters more than any single field. For more on this, see our guide to attribute-based personalization on Shopify accounts.

Step 5: Translate it

If you sell in more than one language, translate the labels, descriptions and consent wording. AccountCraft includes translations, so a customer in Germany sees the same page in German. Consent language in particular should be clear in the customer’s own language.

Step 6: Use the data

Collecting without acting is the fastest way to waste a customer’s trust. Once the metafields are filling up:

  • Build customer segments from metafield values for targeted campaigns.
  • Use the values in your email or SMS platform to personalize content.
  • Feed them into product recommendations or merchandising decisions.

Shopify’s own guidance frames customer data as a way to send the right offers to the right customers at the right time. Shopify experts also advise that zero-party data works best combined with first-party behavioral data, not in isolation. Purchase history tells you what someone bought. The account page tells you why, and for whom.

Other places to collect zero-party data

The account page is the home base, but it works best alongside other touchpoints that feed it:

Whatever the entry point, send the answers to the same place. When a quiz result lands in a customer metafield, the customer can see and change it on their account page, and your data stays in one spot.

Value exchange: why customers will answer

People share data when they see a clear return. Shopify’s guidance suggests offering value in exchange, such as personalized recommendations, discounts or loyalty points. A few rules keep the exchange honest:

  • Say what the answer is for. “We use your dog’s size to show the right harness” beats “Tell us more about you.”
  • Keep it short. Three questions answered are worth more than twelve abandoned.
  • Make it optional. Required fields on an account page push people toward leaving blanks or junk values.
  • Let them change their mind. An editable page is the best proof that the choice is theirs.

Zero-party data is volunteered, but that does not remove your obligations. Shopify advises that merchants tell customers what information is collected and how it will be used, and notes that its built-in consent tools can help obtain permission and handle rules such as GDPR and CCPA.

In practice:

  1. Write a plain-language explanation next to the fields. Name the purpose, not just the data.
  2. Record consent separately from preferences. A customer telling you their favorite category is not the same as agreeing to marketing emails. Use a privacy consent block and, for text messages, an SMS consent block.
  3. Honor changes. If a customer withdraws consent, your marketing tools need to respect it.
  4. Keep records. Our guide on exporting consent records from Shopify shows how to pull them when you need them.

AccountCraft is designed to help you collect, record and honor customer consent through Shopify’s customer privacy APIs. It does not make a store compliant by itself: compliance remains the merchant’s responsibility, and this article is not legal advice. For specific obligations, talk to a qualified privacy lawyer.

For deeper reading, our posts cover the GDPR checkbox for New Customer Accounts, adding account consent without code, CCPA steps in the Shopify admin and double opt-in.

Handling access and deletion requests

Self-service editing covers part of the picture, but customers can also ask you to send or erase their data. In the Shopify admin, you can process these by opening the customer profile and choosing the matching action in the More actions menu. Note that erasing personal data redacts identifying information but leaves order history and the profile in the admin, which is different from deleting a profile outright.

Shopify also requires public apps on its App Store to subscribe to the mandatory compliance webhooks for data requests and deletion, so that subject requests can be handled within 30 days. Check any app you install against those expectations.

Limit who can see the data

Preferences and personal context are sensitive in aggregate. Shopify recommends applying least privilege: give staff access only to the parts of the admin they need. Review staff permissions when you add new metafields that hold personal details.

Perspective: the account page is the missing piece

We built AccountCraft because we kept seeing the same pattern. Merchants invest in quizzes, pop-ups and surveys, collect useful answers, and then the answers disappear into an email tool the customer can never see.

Our view is that zero-party data only deserves the name when the customer stays in control of it. That means a place where they can see what they shared, change it, and withdraw consent, inside the store they already log into.

That is why we use official Shopify Customer Account UI Extensions and keep customer data in Shopify, bound to customer metafields. You do not need a second database, a theme edit or a developer to ask a good question and store the answer properly.

Start small: three fields, one consent block, one clear sentence about why you ask. Then use what you learn. A short page that you act on beats a long page that you never open.

Ivan Signorile

Start collecting on your account page

AccountCraft has a free plan, so you can build your first preference page and see how customers respond before deciding on anything more. Paid plans (Pro and Plus) are billed through Shopify, and the Shopify App Store listing shows current pricing.

AccountCraft

Ready to try it? Install AccountCraft free from the Shopify App Store, or read more on the AccountCraft site. If you work with B2B customers, see how to launch B2B accounts without code.

A simple rollout plan

If you want a first version live this week, follow this order:

  1. Pick one goal, such as better email relevance or better product recommendations.
  2. Choose three to five fields that serve that goal and nothing else.
  3. Create the customer metafield definitions, with fixed value lists where possible.
  4. Build the account page with an update form, a privacy consent block and a short explanation.
  5. Add conditional rendering so only relevant customers see each question.
  6. Announce the page in a post-purchase email and your account login flow.
  7. After a few weeks, check which fields are filled in, drop the ones nobody answers, and use the rest in segments.

Agencies can run the same plan for clients: the setup lives in the app and in Shopify’s own admin, so handing it over is straightforward.

FAQ

Is zero-party data the same as first-party data?

No. Zero-party data is what a customer intentionally tells you, such as preferences or purchase intent. First-party data is what you observe from behavior, such as clicks and orders. Both belong to your store, and Shopify experts suggest combining them.

Where does zero-party data live in Shopify?

The cleanest option is customer metafields, stored on each customer record in your Shopify admin. With AccountCraft, fields are bound to those metafields, so customers edit their own data and nothing is copied to a separate database.

You should tell customers what you collect and how you will use it, and record consent where your marketing relies on it. Shopify’s consent tools can help with this, but which rules apply to your store depends on where you sell and who you sell to. Ask a qualified privacy professional for legal advice.

Can customers update or delete their own information?

Customers can edit fields you expose on their account page. For access or erasure requests, you can process them from the customer profile in the Shopify admin, using the More actions menu. Erasure redacts personal data but leaves order history.

Do I need a developer to add custom fields to New Customer Accounts?

Not with AccountCraft. You build the page in a visual Block Builder, with no code and no theme changes. You can start on the free plan.

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