Let first-time customers check out as guests. Ask only for what the order needs, then offer an account on the confirmation page, where saving their details is one password away rather than a barrier.

The page before the payment

A shopper finds the product, picks a size, adds it to the cart and presses checkout. The next page asks them to log in or create an account.

They do not have one. So they are asked for an email address, a password that meets certain rules, the same password again, and sometimes a confirmation link sent to their inbox.

All of this stands between a person who has decided to buy and the payment page. Some get through it. Others decide to think about it, and do not come back.

The store asked for an account because it seemed tidy. The shopper met it as a form they never agreed to fill in.

Why it costs sales

The moment after pressing checkout is the most decided a shopper will ever be. Everything added at that point competes with their intention to pay.

A password has to be invented, typed twice on a phone keyboard, and remembered. Many people know they will forget it, and resent being asked.

Some suspect, reasonably, that an account means more email. Others are buying a one-off gift and have no wish to join anything.

Even returning customers who did make an account months ago now meet a login screen, a forgotten password, and a reset email that takes its time.

What a first order genuinely needs

The fourth is the one most stores ask for by default and never explain. If the courier does not need it, make it optional; if it does, say why beside the field.

Everything else, such as a birthday, how they heard about you, or a password, is something the store would like rather than something the order needs.

Ask for those later, if at all, and only where you will use the answer.

Guest checkout

Guest checkout lets a customer buy with only those details. The order still has a number, a receipt and tracking, and the store still has everything it needs to fulfil it.

The common platforms support it. WooCommerce has a setting that allows orders without an account, and Shopify lets a store make accounts optional, required or switched off.

On many small stores the option was switched off when the store was built, by somebody who assumed accounts were standard, and nobody has looked at it since.

Where an order needs looking up later, its number and the email address used are enough, without a login.

Offer the account afterwards

The confirmation page is the right moment to suggest an account. The purchase is done, the details are already entered, and the only thing missing is a password.

Phrase the offer around what the customer gets: faster checkout next time, order history, saved addresses. One field and a button, not a second form.

The same offer can go in the confirmation email instead. Either way, the customer decides after they have been served, not before.

Some customers will say yes. The ones who say no have still bought, which was the point.

A worked example

An online craft supply store sells yarn, fabric, thread and paints, mostly to people who already know exactly what they want.

Its checkout required an account, set up that way when the store was built so it could recognise repeat customers. The account form asked for a username, a password typed twice and a phone number.

A regular customer emailed to say she had given up on an order of embroidery thread, because she could not remember the password she had made a year earlier.

The fix was the platform's own setting. Guest checkout went on, the username field disappeared, and the phone number became optional, with a note that the courier uses it only for delivery problems.

An offer to save details now appears on the order confirmation page, with a single password field.

Repeat customers are still recognised by the email address on their orders, which was the information the store had wanted all along.

Express payment buttons

Buttons such as PayPal and Apple Pay go further: the customer pays with details already stored elsewhere, often without typing an address at all.

On a phone, that can mean paying with a fingerprint or a face scan instead of typing a card number on a small keyboard.

For a small store, they offer the speed of an account without asking anybody to create one with you.

They need setting up and testing like anything else, and they belong beside the normal checkout, not in place of it.

Fewer accounts, less to protect

Every account is a record of somebody's personal information, kept by the store for as long as the account exists.

Under Canadian privacy law, that information has to be protected. Any breach involving it must be recorded, and reported if it creates a real risk of significant harm.

Accounts created only because the checkout insisted are records nobody needed. Guest checkout keeps the store's collection closer to what each order requires, which is the principle the law starts from.

Fewer stored passwords also means fewer accounts for anybody to break into using a password leaked from another site.

The counter-case

Some stores do need accounts.

Wholesale stores with trade pricing, subscription services, and anything with ongoing access, such as downloads or courses, need to know who is buying and must keep that relationship.

Even then, the account form should ask only for what the account needs.

A store whose customers reorder the same items every few weeks may find most of them want an account. It should make one easy to create, while still not forcing first-timers through it.

For most small stores selling to the public, though, the order comes first and the account second, offered once the customer has been served.

The checkout check

  1. Buy something yourself as a new customer.
  2. Count the fields between cart and payment.
  3. Remove anything the order does not need.
  4. Turn on guest checkout in your store settings.
  5. Explain the phone field or make it optional.
  6. Offer an account on the confirmation page.
  7. Test the whole thing on a phone.

Step four is the one that matters most, and on most platforms it is a single setting. The other steps make the checkout shorter; this one removes a reason to leave.

The other promise a checkout makes is covered in shipping promises after one-day delivery.

Frequently asked questions

Why does a required account lose sales?

It adds a password, rules and sometimes a confirmation email at the moment a shopper is most decided. Some leave, and returning customers forget their passwords.

What does a first order actually need?

An email address for the receipt, a shipping address or pickup choice, a billing address if different, a phone number only if the courier needs it, and payment.

How do I turn on guest checkout?

Usually in your store settings. WooCommerce has a setting allowing orders without an account, and Shopify lets you make customer accounts optional rather than required.

When should I offer an account?

On the confirmation page or in the confirmation email, after the purchase, when the details are already entered and only a password is missing.

Can I still recognise repeat customers?

Yes. Orders carry the customer's email address, so repeat buyers can be recognised without an account, and an order can be looked up by number and email.

Which stores genuinely need accounts?

Wholesale stores with trade pricing, subscription services, and stores selling ongoing access such as downloads or courses. Stores with frequent reorders should make accounts easy rather than compulsory.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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