When someone buys a mapped product in your Shopify shop, your MemberArea turns that purchase into an order, a member and the access you chose. Follow one test order through this chain before you send customers to your shop. It takes a few minutes and it is the only way to be sure every link holds.
Place one test order
Buy the mapped product in your own shop, with an email address that does not exist in your MemberArea yet. That way you also see the account being created.
You can pay for real or use a Shopify test payment. A test payment turns the order into a test order here. Orders from a Shopify development store always count as test orders, however they were paid: MemberArea recognises a development store when you connect it. A test order unlocks access just like a real one, but it stays out of your reports and affiliate payouts.
Your MemberArea only reacts once Shopify reports the order as paid. An unpaid or pending order unlocks nothing.
Follow it through
Step 1: the delivery
- Open your Shopify page at
/admin/settings/integrations/shopify. - Open the Webhook log tab.
Your order appears within seconds, with the topic orders/paid and the result
Processed. The note under the topic names the order and counts the items
that matched a mapping, for example "Order SHP-1001-K7QZ imported, 1 mapped
item(s)." If it ends in "no mapped item.", the order arrived but no active
mapping covered the product.
Step 2: the order
- Open Payments, then Sales, then Orders.
- For a test order, open the menu in the toolbar above the list and choose Show test orders. Without it, test orders stay hidden.
The order number starts with SHP-, followed by the Shopify order number and
four extra characters. This
is a real order, not a note:
- It counts in your revenue, unless it is a test order.
- It is stored in the currency of the order in Shopify, with no conversion.
- It can pay an affiliate commission. The affiliate code comes from an order
attribute named
ref, or from?ref=in the address of the page where the buyer entered your shop. The commission is then calculated the same way as for a purchase in your MemberArea. - If the product behind a mapping tracks stock in your catalog, the sale lowers that stock here too.
A paid order for a product nobody mapped is created all the same. It counts in your revenue, it can pay a commission, and the buyer becomes a member without any access.
A subscription sold in Shopify arrives here as a single order. Your MemberArea does not recognise later payments as renewals of it.
Step 3: the member
- Open Audience, then Members.
- Find the buyer by their email address.
Every buyer whose order carries an email address gets an account. If the account is new and Send a welcome email with a password link is switched on, the buyer receives your welcome email with a link to set a password. A buyer who already had an account gets no welcome email. You find that switch on the Rules tab of the Shopify page, and in the Rules step of Set up Shopify, which opens when you map a product.
A buyer can show up as a member and as a contact. When Shopify reports a new customer before the order is paid, your MemberArea creates a contact for that customer, and the paid order then adds the member. How customers become contacts is explained in Importing your Shopify customers.
Shopify is the seller of that order and sends the buyer the receipt. Your MemberArea sends no receipt and no invoice for it, so the buyer does not get a second one.
Step 4: the access
Open the member and check the course, group or forum you mapped. Or sign in as the buyer and look at the member area they see.
Then refund it
Refund the test order in Shopify. With Revoke access on refund switched on,
which it is unless you changed it, the access is gone again within seconds. The
Webhook log shows a refunds/create delivery with the result Processed
and a note that starts with "Full refund, access revoked".
Partial refunds, refunds with the switch off and cancellations each follow their own rules. They are explained in Refunds and cancellations in Shopify.
When something is missing
| Symptom | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Nothing happened at all | Webhook log. No entry means Shopify never reached your MemberArea. Check whether the connection card at the top of the page reads Disconnected. |
| Entry says Ignored | The note says why. Reading the Shopify webhook log explains each reason. |
| Entry says Retrying | The delivery is tried again on its own in a moment. The note carries the reason. Wait, then press Refresh. |
| Entry says Failed | The automatic tries are used up. The note carries the reason. Fix it, then press Process again on that row. |
| Order is there, access is not | Open the Mappings tab and find the product. The mapping has No access target, it is paused (the row shows Paused and offers Activate), or it reads No longer linked. An order only unlocks what an active, linked mapping points at. |
| The order came in before you mapped the product | Mapping it now only affects later orders. Give that one buyer the access by hand on the member. The delivery counts as processed, so Process again is not offered for it. |
| Order is there, no member at all | The order carried no email address. Without one, your MemberArea cannot create a member. |
| Member is there twice | The two orders carried two different email addresses. Your MemberArea finds the member by email address, so a new address makes a new member. The exception: when the Shopify customer of the order already belongs to a member from an earlier order, that member gets the access, even under a new address. |