Guest Checkout

[Mark]

We would like to offer the following option at checkout: "No, I want to checkout without creating a password."
Has anyone implemented this and has it working flawlessly?
We certainly want to require an email, since all the invoices, ship notifications, tracking info, etc....however, we don't want to require an account for every customer. Can we revisit this again? :)

Here is an example of what we are looking for:

{ } Yes I have an account.

{ } No, I want to create a new account.

{ } No, I want to checkout without creating an account.

[watchdr]

Hi Mark,

Yes, we do not require a customer to login or enter a password. Many customers don't want to create an account so they leave and buy somewhere that doesn't require them to create an account.

The problem with 3dcart is that if they don't create an account, for some reason the programmers didn't think it was important to make these customers information listed in the customer database. Every other shopping cart I have used does this.

The benefit is that you can then email them when needed easily. Yes, the new quick search is nice but it is not sufficient for what a real business needs.

So we are currently having to add these customers that don't create an account into our customer database.

This is a real pain and extremely time consuming but the benefit is that if a customer that placed an order previously without an account calls and needs to place an order over the phone or has questions about their order we can easily look them up.

Common sense would dictate to the programmers that all customers placing orders should be listed in the customer database.

When I brought this up I was told that if these people were listed in the customer database all someone would need to know is their email address and they could steal the customers information. But that doesn't make any sense since there isn't a password associated with the customer so they could never get access to the info. It was in my mind a cop out reply.

I think they were hoping I was stupid and didn't understand anything! I am not.

Try adding a customer to the database without a password and then from your front end try and get access to their information. Without a password you can't!!!

On our checkout page we have the button to log into their account or they can "Checkout as a Guest" In large Bold Red font so they know they are not required to make one more account at one more store just to buy something.

It seems to work for us so far. About half of our customers create an account. That means half of them we have to manually insert in the customer database.

We download the orders database, extract the customer info and put it into a new file and upload it into the customer database.

We use Killink CSV for our CSV work. It has no limits on files sizes. The only limit on file size is your computers memory. So if you have a couple gigs available you can deal with huge CSV files.

Hope this helps.

Ken
www.watchbandsolutions.com

[Mark]

Thanks,
couple questions.
Did you notice any increase in conversion after the change?
Do you list the three options like I have above, or just indicate on checkout that password is optional?
What CSVs would be THAT large (GB) :eek: Do you have images in your CSV?

Thanks.

[yourcablestore.com]

You might want to take a look at the thread below and our website at https://www.yourcablestore.com/checkout.asp?step=1 (you will need to add something to your cart to see the checkout choices). You can get the code you need by viewing the source on checkout step one. If you have any problems implementing it I will try to help.

http://forums.3dcart.com/store-desig...kout-page.html

(PS Don't know if it works flawlessly but we have had no complaints / issues since going live with the alternate checkout code.)

[watchdr]

Thanks,
couple questions.
Did you notice any increase in conversion after the change?
Do you list the three options like I have above, or just indicate on checkout that password is optional?
What CSVs would be THAT large (GB) :eek: Do you have images in your CSV?

Thanks.

1) Yes, we have more conversions and more people that don't create an account placing orders.

2) We don't list the three options. We have a message stating they can create an account, login to their account if they made one previously or they can checkout as a guest.

3) Our csv is only 13MB right now but Excel has a problem with it claiming the file is too big.

Ken

[concession-supply.com]

It seems guest checlout still requires an email. Has anyone tried to turn off both the email AND password requirements? This would seem to me to be a true "guest" checkout. Not sure what consumers don't like most, assigning a password to their order, or, giving out their email address. We may explore changing the wording that if they don't supply an email, they wont recieve tracking info. Perhaps customers really don't mind followup or tracking info, just as long as they don't have to give out their email.
Thoughts on this?

[concession-supply.com]

Question:
If you disable email and password required, essentially allowing true "guest" checkout, can you still collect the info optionally? For example, state in your checkout page that email is only required for invoice/order status emails and that a password is only required to see order status online?
In other words, if you have email and password as optional, and, they enter an email, will the order emails still go out? Or is the email/password combination required for emails to go out?
Not sure on this.......:confused:

[JustPoppin]

It seems guest checlout still requires an email. Has anyone tried to turn off both the email AND password requirements? This would seem to me to be a true "guest" checkout. Not sure what consumers don't like most, assigning a password to their order, or, giving out their email address. We may explore changing the wording that if they don't supply an email, they wont recieve tracking info. Perhaps customers really don't mind followup or tracking info, just as long as they don't have to give out their email.
Thoughts on this?

I don't see any logic in allowing customers to check out without providing an email address. What if you need to contact them about their order?!

I find that our customers definitely appreciate the tracking emails. I can see live when people are on our site and within minutes of sending out the "Your order has shipped email" we get a bunch of hits to site from people clicking on the "Track your package" link. Giving customers the ability to track their package is a MUST these days as far as I'm concerned. Not only does it give them peace of mind, but it covers your butt!!!

I do agree though, for some reason customers can tend to be funny about giving out their email addresses which really makes no sense. What is especially crazy is when they call to place an order and are perfectly happy giving their credit card info over the phone but the balk at giving their email address!!! :p

Jennie

[yourcablestore.com]

It seems guest checkout still requires an email. Has anyone tried to turn off both the email AND password requirements? This would seem to me to be a true "guest" checkout. Not sure what consumers don't like most, assigning a password to their order, or, giving out their email address. We may explore changing the wording that if they don't supply an email, they wont recieve tracking info. Perhaps customers really don't mind followup or tracking info, just as long as they don't have to give out their email.

I haven't tried it and don't think checking out without a email is really a good option (how do you contact the customer if there is a issue?). There is a option in 3dcart to not require e-mail. I'm not sure how it affects checkout but it would be easy for you to check the check box to test it out.

If that does not work you can remove the e-mail address requirement from the forms and t he form validation. Then if 3dcart still requires a e-mail you could fill in the e-mail address with a dummy address (like [email protected]).

If the buyer still chooses to enter a email address 3dcart should record the e-mail address (again you would have to test it to make sure that is how it works).

[piaf]

You might want to take a look at the thread below and our website at https://www.yourcablestore.com/checkout.asp?step=1 (you will need to add something to your cart to see the checkout choices). You can get the code you need by viewing the source on checkout step one. If you have any problems implementing it I will try to help.

http://forums.3dcart.com/store-desig...kout-page.html

(PS Don't know if it works flawlessly but we have had no complaints / issues since going live with the alternate checkout code.)

Yourcablestore,
I realize I'm a bit late to the party here, but I'd REALLY like to implement what you've done on your initial checkout page. My question is... where did you go in the store admin to add that code to your page? If you didn't do it in the admin area, how did you add what you needed?

[cashmore]

A question on this same subject:

If you require email address, and a customer checks out as a guest, and you subsequently manually add that customer to your database, the next time that customer orders will the system see that customer in the database and require them to log in for all future orders?

I do believe that once a customer intentionally creates an account using a certain email address, that they will be required to log in for all subsequent orders.

Any insight on this from my 3dcart colleagues?

Thanks,

[mondo]

As far as I know registered customer can always check out as a guest w/the same E-mail they use to sign in. You can on our site and I see no on/off toggle for it in settings

The default wording even states that in the login section.

If you have registered with us before, sign in now to save time during checkout. Even if previously registered you can check out without signing in.

Just interested.
Wondered why you sign up customers that didn't want to sign up?

[Rob1]

You can do this on multi-page checkout, but not on the single page checkout. For some reason, the single page checkout will not let you checkout if the email address is already assigned to an account. We stopped using single page checkout because, at least for us, it was a conversion killer. There are too many people that create accounts during one visit, but then come back to order and don't remember if they have an account, what their password is, etc and they just want to order. They don't want to be forced to do something they have no interest in. This definitely is a major friction point that I hope goes away in a future release. :)

Rob

[elightbox]

The first and foremost rule should be: don't hassle the customer. If bothered they will just leave and not come back.

I don't know why if they check out with an existing e-mail, why not just add the order to their account without hassling them with checking in again. Make it transparent. Or at the very least as mentioned above let them checkout anonymously.