What Is the Most Valuable Customers Report?
Every store has a short list of customers worth far more than the average buyer. The Most Valuable Customers report puts that list in front of you, ranked from the highest spender down, so the people who matter most sit at the top of the page instead of buried in your customer list.
The report is sorted by Total Spent in descending order. Alongside each customer it shows their name, their number of Orders, and their email, which turns a ranking into a contact list you can act on right away.
One point worth clarifying: this report ranks customers by how much they have spent, not by how often they buy. A shopper who placed a single large order can outrank someone with many small ones. That is different from a repeat-buyer report, which filters to customers with more than one order. Use Most Valuable Customers when the question is "who spends the most," and reach for a loyalty or returning-customer view when the question is "who buys again and again."
Which Fields Are Included in the Most Valuable Customers Report?
These fields identify each top customer and show what earned them their place on the list.
You can customize the pre-made report by adding, removing, or rearranging fields to match how you review your customers.
Important Insights You Can Find in This Report
Is most of your revenue coming from a handful of customers or spread across many?
Because the list is ranked by Total Spent, the shape of the top rows tells you how concentrated your revenue is. If a small number of customers account for a large slice of spending, that group is both your biggest opportunity and your biggest risk, and it likely deserves a dedicated VIP tier or priority support. If spending is spread evenly, retention efforts are better aimed broadly rather than at a few names.
Are your top spenders frequent buyers or occasional big spenders?
Read Total Spent against the Orders column for the same customer. A high total built on many orders points to a loyal, habitual buyer worth protecting with loyalty perks. A high total built on very few orders points to a large-basket or one-time whale, where the right move is a follow-up designed to earn a second purchase rather than assuming the relationship is already secure. The two patterns look identical if you only sort by spend.
Can you actually act on this list once you have it?
The value of a ranked list depends on whether you can reach the people on it. Scan the Email field across your top customers before exporting or scheduling, since gaps there quietly shrink any campaign built from this report. Where names or emails look incomplete, the Customer ID gives you a stable reference to reconcile the record before you send anything.
THE ANALYST'S READ: The Signal Most Merchants Miss
Total Spent is a lifetime figure, so a customer can hold a top spot on the strength of past orders while having gone quiet months ago. This report has no order-date or recency column, which means the ranking alone cannot tell you whether a high-value customer is still active or slowly lapsing. Before you treat your top rows as your current best customers, it is worth checking their recent order activity in a report that carries dates. Look for names with a high Total Spent but a low or stalled Orders count, since those are the customers most likely to be coasting on old purchases and the ones a win-back message may reach in time.
How Can You Automate the Most Valuable Customers Report?
Open the pre-made Most Valuable Customers report in Report Pundit. The columns are already set and sorted, so you can press Save and start using it. To rebuild it yourself, open Custom Reports, add the fields above, set your date range, apply any filter, and save.
Once saved, schedule it to email you automatically on a daily, weekly, or monthly cycle, and have it sent to your team, VA, or marketing lead on the same schedule. You can export it as Excel, CSV, or PDF, or push it to Google Sheets or Google Drive so the ranked list lands where you already work.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does Total Spent mean in this report?
Total Spent is the total amount a customer has paid across their orders in your store. The report ranks customers by this value from highest to lowest, so the biggest spenders appear first.
How is Most Valuable Customers different from the Returning Customers report?
Most Valuable Customers ranks every customer by how much they have spent, so a single large order can place someone near the top. The Returning Customers report filters to buyers with more than one order, so it answers "who is loyal" rather than "who spends the most." Use them together to see whether your biggest spenders are also your repeat buyers.
Can I see spend for a specific date range instead of lifetime totals?
By default the report reflects each customer's total spend. You can apply a date range to focus the report on a chosen window, which is useful when you want to see who spent the most during a campaign, a season, or a launch.
Why does the report include Customer ID as well as the name and email?
Customer ID is the unique reference Shopify assigns to each customer. It lets you tell apart two customers with the same or similar names and keeps your top-customer list accurate when you export it or match it against other records.
Can I add more customer details, such as phone number or address?
Yes. The report is fully customizable, so you can add fields to enrich the list. For a complete profile view with contact and address details, the Customer Information report is the better starting point.