Customers emaill address

Forcing the issue = lost order, maybe.

[Essex_boy]

So how many of you force teh issue over email addresses?

I can see several posts on here saying customers dont know what to do and misenter addresses however my cart validates them so I suspect that im losing orders.

I wonder. Any one else have any experience of this?

[Corey Bryant]

The email address is the quickest way usually to get in touch with the customer. Emailing provided written documentation that (if anything should go wrong), you have a backup of it to send to your provider if there was a chargeback.

I would say - always get an email address. I can see in the near future where a lot of merchants will ever start to require validation of such email address. Maybe even Visa / Mastercard would start using it - but that would take massive implementation

-Corey

[ispy]

If your shipping items, its also best to require a phone number so you can include this on your shipping label. I find that when getting in touch with a customer I always need to call them anyway because of the unreliability of emails. For example, they can easily be deleted as spam.

You never know if the message got through and after you send it you have to keep in the back of your mind to wait for a reply within the next couple days and then remember if you got a reply and from whom.

[budgie]

We get email addresses and phone numbers, though the email addresses are regularly incorrect. Usually we can spot the typical typo and correct it eg hotmsil.com. If you send email receipts then you need the email address anyway, but we have customers who don't have email so we have an alternative for phone orders.

[CernyM]

I wonder. Any one else have any experience of this?

Are you asking whether email address should be an optional field or whether you should just accept whatever is entered?

[sniffer]

The shorter the form the better. Email validation is unnecessary in my opinion, unless the email address is integral to the service you're selling

If an email address is mistyped, which is rare, the customer often contacts you and lets you know anyway. Or you can tell by just looking at the address

[Essex_boy]

IM saying accept whatever is entered.