Guest Checkout Versus Making an Account

Why shops ask for an account

The reasons are genuine, which is why this keeps happening.

An account lets somebody track an order, reorder quickly, and see their history. It gives you a customer record, an address for marketing, and a way to recognise repeat buyers.

For a business, a registered customer feels more valuable than an anonymous transaction, and in the long run frequently is.

The problem is not the account. It is requiring it before payment, at the moment somebody had decided to buy.

What it costs at that moment

Forced registration is consistently among the most cited reasons for abandoning a checkout, and the reasons people give are practical rather than principled.

Another password to invent and remember. A suspicion that registering means marketing email. The feeling that this is a longer process than expected. And for a first-time buyer, a commitment to a relationship before they know whether the shop is any good.

Somebody buying one item, once, has no use for an account and is being asked to do work for your benefit.

The request also arrives at the worst possible point in the sequence, after the decision and before the payment, which is the moment with the least tolerance for friction of any kind.

The sequence that gets both

The resolution is order rather than either-or.

Let them buy as a guest. Take the payment. Confirm the order.

Then, on the confirmation page and in the confirmation email, offer an account: your details are already here, choose a password and you can track this order and reorder next time.

At that point the customer is committed, satisfied, and being offered something useful rather than being charged an entry fee. Conversion to accounts from this offer is usually good, and every one of them is an account you would otherwise have lost the sale to obtain.

Guest is not the same as anonymous

A misconception that makes shops reluctant, and it is simply wrong.

A guest order still gives you a name, an email address, a delivery address, an order history, and everything you need to fulfil, support, and account for the sale.

• You can email them about the order.
• You can see their history by matching on the address.
• You can ask for marketing consent at checkout, properly.
• You can invite them to register afterwards.
• You lose almost nothing except a stored password.

The only genuine loss is the ability for them to log in and see things themselves, which matters to repeat buyers and not to somebody ordering once.

A worked example

A specialist supplier required registration and defended it on the grounds that their customers were mostly trade and would reorder.

Their funnel showed the largest single drop at the account creation step, and it was heavily weighted toward first-time visitors.

They added guest checkout and an invitation to register on the confirmation page.

Orders rose about a quarter in the first two months.

Roughly forty percent of guest buyers created an account when invited afterwards, which was fewer accounts per order than before, and considerably more accounts in total because there were many more orders.

Their assumption had been correct about their existing customers and wrong about the new ones, who were the group the requirement was turning away.

The order-tracking objection

The most reasonable argument for accounts, and it has a straightforward answer.

An order can be tracked without a login, using an order number and the email address it was placed with.

That is enough to identify the order, requires nothing to be remembered, and works from the confirmation email six weeks later when nobody recalls a password.

A tracking page reachable that way removes most of the practical case for compulsory registration, and it also serves customers who did register and have forgotten their details, which is a larger group than anybody expects.

When an account genuinely is required

There are cases, and they should be stated rather than assumed.

Trade customers on credit terms, where the account is the commercial relationship and pricing depends on it.

Subscriptions and anything with a recurring payment, where the customer needs to manage it.

Regulated purchases requiring verification, and digital goods delivered through a logged-in area.

In all of those the account is the product rather than an administrative preference. Where that applies, say why at the point of asking, because a reason converts an obstacle into a step.

If you must ask, ask well

Where registration stays, several things reduce its cost considerably.

Ask for it after the delivery and payment details are entered rather than before, so the sunk effort works in your favour.

Require nothing beyond an email and a password. Every additional field at this point is compounding the problem you already have.

Do not ask people to confirm an email address before the order can complete, which strands the sale in an inbox.

And say plainly what the account is for and whether it means marketing, since the unstated assumption is that it does.

The counter-case

Guest checkout is not free of downsides and it is worth being honest about them.

Guest orders make repeat-customer analysis harder, since the same person may appear as several unlinked orders, and matching on email is imperfect when people use different addresses.

It can also increase support load, because customers who cannot log in contact you instead, which is why the order tracking route above matters as much as the guest option itself.

And for a business that is genuinely account-based, offering guest checkout creates a second class of customer whose pricing and terms are unclear, which causes more trouble than it solves.

The judgement is whether the account exists for the customer or for you. If it is for you, offer it afterwards.

What to do

1. Check your funnel for a drop at the account step.
2. Add guest checkout as the default path.
3. Invite registration on the confirmation page and email.
4. Add order tracking by order number and email.
5. Ask marketing consent separately and honestly.
6. Where an account is required, say why at that point.

Step three is what recovers the accounts, and it is the step most shops leave out when they add guest checkout.

Testing the checkout itself is covered in tabbing through your own checkout.

Frequently asked questions

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.