Customers logging in to website, yes or no?

Kent Brockman

What is the pros and cons of having customers register/set up an account/log in when purchasing from a website.

I would personally prefer not to have to log in to a website/my account when ordering online.
Is it beneficial to the website owner or even to the customer?

tricky D

Business owners and marketing depts seem to get clap happy when they see user registration numbers. However it damages business. Some users will be happy to reg but a significant portion (double figures) will not and will bail out due to it being a barrier to purchase hence the damage. They don't want a relationship, just the purchase only please. Also every extra required bit of input is an extra opportunity to bail out. I like to use the rule of thumb that you should only require the minimum info in most form filling processes. Most of the time the info isn't needed or used anyway and there are much better ways of 'remarketing'.

Do provide the option if you want but clearly setting out the advantages, as users who want to do so, will do so and willingly, which is best by far.

Or for the bricks and mortar analogy, how would react if you had to fill out a form in any department store in order to buy?

Kenny Logins

I prefer a quick checkout through Paypal, I'd say many retailers would prefer not go through PP though...

TheWaterboy

I absolutely hate having to sign up before I buy - I usually just leave the site.

The checkout process should be as simple and quick as possible. You have got your customer to add products and offer to checkout - you should do nothing now to try and make them not part with their money.

After they make payment you can create an automatic account for them if they wish to log back in again.

People like the paypal option on a website as it means you enter your email address and password and job done.

MOH

If you're in the kind of business that's likely to have a lot of repeat customers, then registrations provides benefits like storing address details and previous orders for reorder.
Most of the time you're going to have to capture all the data anyway to process the order.
For some businesses, buying patterns of repeat customers can give useful data. Although some companies take it to some pretty worrying extremes.

I'd always give a guest option though for those who don't want to register.

My biggest beef with a lot of sites is being forced to register before I can see the shipping costs, that'll generally make me leave straight away.

If I've already decided to purchase, registering isn't really an issue for me, provided it's not looking for a ton of extra details beyond e-mail address, delivery address, and password.

cormee

Kent Brockman wrote: »

What is the pros and cons of having customers register/set up an account/log in when purchasing from a website.

I would personally prefer not to have to log in to a website/my account when ordering online.
Is it beneficial to the website owner or even to the customer?

The cons are, requiring registration can cost you up to $300,000,000 (if you're Amazon) http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button

People hate forms, adding a registration form is another barrier between the customer and that final Confirm Purchase button. As Tricky D said, and as is quoted in that link I just posted, customers don't want to form a relationship with you, they want to buy your product and leave your site.

There's a very good book, called Web Form Design - Filling in the Blanks, where the autor recommends that for every new form, and every new form field you add, the designer should ask himself "which is more important, this information or a sale" - because every new form and every new form element you add will cost you business.