"guest" checkout process verses user registration

[Suka]

Hi,

I am curious to find out if anyone has opinions/experience on if it's better to provide customers with the option to order as a "guest" or have everyone who orders go through your site registration process. (as long as it's short n sweet.)

I have seen the "guest" checkout on several sites, but I am hard pressed to see the difference in terms of info collected. Is there any real reason to provide this "guest" functionality besides the smoke-and-mirrors "you don't have to share your data w. us we're not big brother" effect?

[hannamyluv]

Oh, we had a thread about this a few weeks ago, and I can't find it for the life of me. If any of you have it flagged, could you share with the rest of the class?

Anyway, forced registration is a bad, bad thing. There is no faster way to drive off a customer than to say you have to provide information. Yes, it may be smoke and mirrors, but it is a very important smoke and mirror to a potential customer.

[Suka]

Thanks for the reply -- if you could manage to dig up the thread or any related info I would greatly appreciate. I'm really surprised. I didn't realize this would be such a big deal and was leaning the other direction. Do you know if the Can Spam Act will have any implications toward the type of info you'd need to collect with a "guest?"

[danieljean]

Yeah, I also think it is a VERY BAD THING (TM).

These are links that should give you more opinions though:
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

HTH!