Disabling "require login" for returning custs

Hi all,

Hi Matt, sorry you didn't get a reply before & Hi Leslie,
   The problem is that all orders must be associated with an email so that the customer can receive emails about the fact that their order has been processed, shipped, there is a problem etc etc. This email address is their userid on the store and that combined with a password, auto-generated or , more normally, manually set by them allows access to information specific to that customer. e.g. Name & Address, previous orders etc. 

If they are returning customers they obviously trusted you enough to place an order in the first place so I would have thought they would be OK with a password at that point.
Without it they would also have to re-enter all their personal details each time they order.

The only way round this I can see right now is to, once they have completed their order, amend the email address associated with their account, so in effect freeing it up for re-use. You would not want to delete the customer record as that would also delete all the customers orders from the system.
There is no automated method for achieving this.

Without a proper login customers haqve no access to see their previous orders and perform RMA's etc.

Hi DavidH,
   Firstly, I'd like to make it clear my posts on the forum are my personal opinions and not any formal position or opinion of Early Impact.

What exactly does your customer want?
I don't think this is an obvious feature - indeed from a personal/business point of view I think it's a slightly crazy idea, but then of course I'm not your customer and I don't know the rational behind their thinking.
 
Collecting customer email addresses is valuable for marketing purposes as well as communicating with customers about their orders. I don't know of any ecommerce stores that don't require an email address and I'm not aware of any that don't require a password , although I guess there are probably some. I suspect they make up a very very small percentage of ecommerce stores.
 
Myself, I would avoid a website that was asking for all my personal details but apparently offering no way of protecting them. If all that is required to access the account is an email address this would be totally unacceptable to me and probably breach rules on protecting privacy in most countries.
 
 A ProductCart store does not technically require the correct email address, just a valid one.
A customer can register with Mmouse@disneyworld.com and their order will still be accepted by the software. The customer is then, of course, "isolated" from email communication.

It follows from this that it would be possible to :-

A) Advise them about the various services which provide temporary email addresses. (Google for temporary email addresses)
B) Advise the customer to make up a random email address, as long as it's NOT a valid one that may belong to someone else.
C) Automatically "zap" the email address provided by setting it to something random, or, for example, adding in the order number after the "@" with some custom code.

I have never had a client who has requested this facility and would like to understand what the reasoning behind  the request is.

Has anyone written code to achieve option C ? What has been the outcome?
 

Hi DavidH,
     The first time a customer visits they are slowed down by having to provide name and address details. On subsequent visits the checkout is faster if they use a regular account.

The biggest issue with not requiring a password at all, not even an auto-generated one, would be that the customer would have to be treated as a new customer each time. Because the email address IS the account this gives access to personal data such as name, address, contact details, purchase history etc etc.  To quote a post from EarlyImpact :
"All in all, there are so many advanced features in ProductCart that are tied to the creation and existence of a customer account that right now it simply does not make sense for us to perform the code changes."

They also pointed out that Google Checkout provides similar functionality.

If you do wish to modify the code then I recommend contacting ssharp to see if they are willing to share the code.
If I was to carry out such a project I think I'd look to place the code just after the order confirmation email has been set and IF (and only IF) the customer has selected the "Checkout without entering a password" feature I would zap the email address at that point, probably using the order number as in my previous post.

Before doing this though I would feel honour bound to go through all the consequences, in terms of loss of useable functionality etc,  of such a change with my client.
If it was really such a great idea then Amazon and the other big players in the market would allow it - but they don't. Still, if your client insists even after you explain all the consequences then I guess you may have to go ahead.

Sorry, followup to my last sentence. It should be as easy as the customer selects Quick Checkout and even a checkbox or something that says they understand they will be treated as a new customer each time, the site should collect their billing, shipping and other necesary info and bypass the returning customer routine. If the email already exists, no problem. The customer already knows from the previous step that their info will need to be reenterd the next time in. Send the order info to Authnet and store the Order info in the tables. Simple  :-)  (I see steam coming out of your ears from here)