Customer records are the long-term asset of any UK online business — they drive repeat purchases, segmentation, and the core of UK GDPR compliance obligations. Magento organises customers into accounts, groups and optional segments. This guide walks through viewing and editing customer records, customer groups for trade vs retail pricing, managing addresses and consent, and the UK GDPR housekeeping that keeps you on the right side of the ICO.
The Customers menu overview • Viewing and editing a customer account • Customer groups and trade pricing • Addresses and the address book • UK GDPR consent, rights and account deletion • Newsletter subscriptions • Guest checkout vs registered accounts • FAQ
Open Customers › All Customers. The grid shows every registered customer with columns for name, email, group, telephone, postcode, country, date of registration, website and confirmed status. The filter bar at the top narrows by any column — a common UK query is “show me everyone who registered this week with a BT postcode” or “all Trade group customers who have not placed an order in 90 days”.
Beyond All Customers, the menu holds four more screens:
For open-source Magento or MageOS on SmartXHosting, All Customers and Customer Groups are the two daily screens.
Clicking a customer in the grid opens a tabbed account editor:
Common editing tasks: change a customer’s group (upgrade a trade applicant from Retail to Trade), update an incorrect email, or add a billing address for a phone order you are placing on their behalf.
Customer groups are the mechanism for tiered pricing, tax treatment and membership benefits. By default Magento ships with four groups: NOT LOGGED IN, General, Wholesale and Retailer.
Under Customers › Customer Groups:
A typical UK B2B pattern:
| Group | Purpose | Tax class | Pricing rule |
|---|---|---|---|
| General | Retail customers | Retail Customer (20% VAT) | Catalogue prices |
| Trade | Vetted trade buyers (verified VAT number) | Retail Customer (20% VAT) | −20% catalogue rule |
| Wholesale | High-volume wholesale accounts | VAT-Reg Customer (ex-VAT) | −35% catalogue rule, order minimum £500 |
| Charity | Registered UK charities | Retail Customer (20% VAT) | −10% rule |
New trade applications often come through a front-end form; they start in the General group and an admin moves them to Trade after verification of the VAT registration number via the HMRC VAT checker.
Customers build an address book over time as they place orders. The Addresses tab lets you:
The postcode field is not validated against Royal Mail’s database out of the box. For UK address lookup at checkout (the typical “type postcode, select your street” pattern), community extensions such as Loqate, GetAddress.io or IdealPostcodes add integration for a modest per-lookup fee. On a conversion-sensitive checkout, address lookup pays for itself.
Under UK GDPR, you are a data controller for every customer record. Three practical obligations Magento helps you meet:
For a UK business, having a documented data-subject request procedure (DSAR) with a logged response process is an Article 30 processing-record expectation. The ICO’s guidance covers timescales (one month from request) and permissible extensions.
Magento ships a basic newsletter module. Customers can opt in at registration (affirmative checkbox, unchecked by default) or during checkout. Subscribers appear under Marketing › Newsletter Subscribers with columns for email, type (guest or customer), status, confirmed.
For real-world email marketing, most UK merchants export the subscriber list into a dedicated platform — Mailchimp, Klaviyo, ActiveCampaign or Omnisend — which handles segmentation, automation, deliverability and Article 21 opt-out management in ways Magento’s core module does not. Magento extensions sync customer and order data to these platforms; the marketing platform does the sending.
Whichever path you take, honour unsubscribes promptly. The ICO has issued six-figure fines to UK retailers who continued sending after unsubscribe requests.
Under Stores › Configuration › Sales › Checkout › Checkout Options, the Allow Guest Checkout setting controls whether shoppers must register before placing an order. Two schools of thought:
The balanced approach is guest checkout enabled, with a prominent “create an account” offer on the success page. Guests can convert to a registered account by setting a password — they keep their order history.
Magento hosting with UK-aware defaults
SmartXHosting Magento plans come with GDPR-friendly defaults, Plesk-managed backup retention and UK-based support for data-subject request handling.
View Magento plansQ: Can I merge two customer accounts with different emails?
A: Not through the Admin UI directly. You can manually reassign orders to one account via a database or API script, then delete the duplicate. For UK merchants with frequent customer merge needs, the Mirasvit Customer Merge extension adds a UI-driven merge workflow.
Q: How do I export customer data for UK GDPR subject access request?
A: Go to Customers › All Customers, filter to the specific customer, click Export in the top right. The CSV contains the account record. For order history and reviews, go to Sales › Orders filtered by customer, and Export. Combine the two CSVs for a complete DSAR response package.
Q: Can I impersonate a customer for support purposes?
A: Core Magento does not have “login as customer” functionality. Magento Commerce has this feature; MageOS and open-source Magento rely on the Mageplaza Login as Customer extension. Valuable for resolving cart issues live with a customer on the phone.
Q: What happens when a customer changes their email address?
A: Magento updates the account but does not send a verification email to the new address unless “Require Emails Confirmation” is enabled. For UK businesses with sensitive accounts, enable email confirmation under Stores › Configuration › Customers › Customer Configuration.
Q: How do I block a customer from ordering?
A: Set the customer’s group to a dedicated “Blocked” group with a catalogue rule that hides all products from that group. Alternatively, under the customer record, set Active to No — they can no longer log in, but guest checkout via the same email is still possible unless you add an email blacklist extension.
Q: Can customers have multiple shipping addresses?
A: Yes — a customer can save unlimited addresses and pick at checkout. Magento also supports “ship to multiple addresses” (split one order across several destinations) under Stores › Configuration › Sales › Multishipping Settings. Useful for B2B customers or gift orders.
Q: How long do I need to keep customer data under UK law?
A: For order and invoice data, HMRC requires six years from the end of the tax year. For marketing consent logs, keep them for the lifetime of the consent — if a customer unsubscribes, keep the consent log for at least six years as proof you processed on a lawful basis. The ICO has detailed guidance on retention periods for customer records.