Syncing customer data from your POS to email marketing platforms like Klaviyo should be straightforward, but it rarely is. Here are the five most common problems agencies face and how to solve them.
1. Duplicate Customer Profiles
Problem: When syncing both Shopify and Lightspeed to Klaviyo, you end up with duplicate customer profiles. The same person appears twice in your segments.
Solution: Use a tool that automatically matches customers by email address and merges profiles. Gather prevents duplicates by checking for existing customers before creating new ones. If you're using Zapier, you'll need to add a "Find Contact" step before creating new contacts.
2. Sync Delays
Problem: Your Klaviyo segments are always behind. A customer buys in-store, but they don't appear in your "recent purchasers" segment for hours.
Solution: Native integrations often sync on hourly schedules. Zapier polls on intervals. For real-time sync, use an event-driven solution like Gather that updates Klaviyo within seconds of a purchase.
3. API Rate Limits
Problem: Your sync fails with "rate limit exceeded" errors during busy periods (like Black Friday).
Solution: Use a tool that handles rate limiting intelligently. Gather queues requests and retries automatically, ensuring no data is lost even during traffic spikes.
4. Missing or Incomplete Data
Problem: Customer profiles in Klaviyo are missing purchase history, or order details are incomplete.
Solution: This often happens when field mappings are incorrect or when the sync tool doesn't understand retail-specific data structures. Use a purpose-built retail integration tool that knows how to map POS data correctly (product categories, brands, SKUs, etc.).
5. Sync Failures Without Alerts
Problem: Your sync stops working, but you don't know until a client complains or you notice missing data days later.
Solution: Use a tool with monitoring and alerting. Gather sends notifications when syncs fail, so you can fix issues immediately instead of discovering them weeks later.
Prevention is Better Than Cure
The best way to avoid these problems is to use a purpose-built integration tool designed for retail data sync. Generic automation tools often lack the retail-specific logic needed to handle these edge cases automatically.