Customers Missing From the Membership Program

TL;DR: If a customer “bought a membership” but doesn’t appear in your program, check the order type. Memberships can only be purchased via your live storefront checkout. Draft Orders (or admin-created orders that don’t go through checkout) will not enroll the customer.

Symptoms

  • “Customer bought a membership but isn’t in the program.”

  • “I can’t find them under members.”

  • “They don’t have the membership tag.”

Root Cause

  • The order was created as a Draft Order (or marked paid by staff) instead of completed through the storefront checkout.

  • Because checkout never ran, no membership enrollment occurred and the expected tags/flows were not triggered.

🔗 Shopify Documentation: Subscription purchase limitations

Fix (What to do now)

  1. Refund/Cancel the Draft Order for the membership product.

  2. Ask the customer to repurchase via your storefront (normal checkout).

  3. After successful checkout, confirm:

    • The customer now has the membership tag in Shopify.

    • They appear in your membership program in Inveterate.


Prevent It (Best Practices)

  • Do not sell memberships via Draft Orders.

  • Train staff to always direct customers to the storefront to buy memberships.

  • Add an internal note/SOP: “No Draft Orders for Membership products.”

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