Shopping Carts - Make Customers create accounts

Terrible or not so bad?

[Webmaster Jay]

Hey Everyone,

I am in the midst of revamping my company's site including finding a new solution for shopping cart and checkout features. I've found one I like called Cartit. It seems pretty easy to add items and has some powerful features that go along with it....however.

It requires a customer to have an account with my site to order from it. I do not like the idea of this and think it would drive people away. I know I would view it as a pain in the butt if I was a customer, but it only asks for information a regular checkout would ask for.

Any opinions on this? Will this chase people away...the idea of creating an account despite the fact that it asks for the information they would give up anyways?

Jason

[Big_Balou]

Hello Webmaster_Jay and welcome to Webmaster World.

I haven't used the cart you mention but ran into a similar dilema when I first looked at OsCommerce. The stock install requires users to have or create an account. This put me off because I don't want to introduce anything in the checkout flow that may cause customers to balk.

The solution, at least for me, was to mod the cart, with a contribution from the Oscommerce community, to allow customers to choose whether they want to create an account or checkout without it. The added benefit of creating an account being that it allowed for stored carts as well as online order tracking.

Does the cart you mention offer this as an alternative or can it be modded to add this functionality? If not and you want to use the cart one way to allay reservations is to focus on the benefits of having an account, if any.

As far as hard data the site using this checkout option is really too new to be able to say one way or another yet. Although personally I tend to look at sites that require accounts and say "another account?!?". It has put me off in some cases but if the rest of the site is compelling enough and they have a clearly written privacy policy I'll go ahead and do it.

Hope this helps some.

[Fighting Falcon]

We've not had any comments either way from any of the websites using our shopping cart software about this issue. Most have tended to use the default setting which does ask their visitors to choose a password+username to make future purchases from the site a little bit easier.

:)

[anchordesk]

How do you feel about stores in the touch and feel world that do the same thing? Some "membership" stores require you to first sign up and get a membership card to enter the store. Usually, they are bulk warehouse stores which offer enough of a discount to make membership worth it. Will your site be offering a service worth the time and risk involved to a potiential customer to think it worth setting up a free account before buying an item? In the end, it's all relative to the individual.

[jbinbpt]

My customers have the option and 95% do not set up an account. Really no need to IMO.

[kjs50]

When researching my cart I absolutely needed a way for customers to checkout without having to create an account. They really need both options. I believe customers feel it's an extra burden to have to create an account that many of them may never use again or will just forget the information.

[sun818]

I don't mind creating an account if account creation is presented elegantly. It needs to be part of the checkout process. For example, your user name is your e-mail and all you have is an optional password field. If you fill it in, you create an account, otherwise your order just gets processed. If you have to create an account first, its a big turn off and I'll look elsewhere.

[Essex_boy]

I once used a cart for a site that had a an account section which was so dam complicated 100% customers dropped their baskets and ran!

So I stopped using it. This firm no longer produce the cart. No surprise really.

I dont mind giving passwords etc for an account as long as I can do while im entering the delievry address and its not an extra burden.

[apsunick]

checkout digishop.digisoft77.com they have customized either a)having no login or b)giving the customer a choice.

[Travel]

As a user who buys almost everythign online, you would lose me unless prices or unique factor was pretty convincing. I have a tendency to forget my user name or password- and hate having to waste time guessing who I am at what store- so I skip it whenever given a choice.

On a related note- my husband tried to buy from a company recently- could not remember his password- tried to register again to purchase- and it would not accept his email as a new user- so he could not give them his money! Definately a scenario to check out...

[andy_boyd]

I'm sceptical about demanding customers to sign up to an account. People are already scared enough of leaving their credit details with site owners and requiring them to be stored with your account is only another reason for them to hit the road and run like the blazes.

If you need to have accounts, then at least give them the option. But I think that a clean, straight forward cart is essential to maximizing sales. You really don't want to let it draw on long enough for them to get confused and leave.

Just my $.2!