Ordering without Login

There is actually a huge difference.

The "checking out without entering a password" feature actually creates a password that is not disclosed to the customer. The first time they order it works beautifully. The problem comes the second time around. They go along adding things to their cart, expecting to use the Early Impact version of quick checkout and they enter their email and choose to "not create a password" and they get the message that the account already exists and it won't let them checkout without logging in.  At this point, they are frustrated and leave.

Our method actually prevents them from entering an email address, and we create a dummy email address for them. Of course they don't get order confirmations, but my client can look up the customer's order with their name or phone number - these people usually prefer doing things the hard way anyway which is why they don't want to create accounts. The next time they come back to the site they put in all of their info again and we create yet another dummy email. Its not a perfect solution but the day we did this change her sales starting going up. Month for Month from 2006 - 2007 her sales have been up a minimum of 40% and for the fall and winter months her sales are up 100%. Not all of this can be attributed to this change, but her company is almost 70 years old. That kind of growth doesn't happen after 70  years. She did no extra advertising, and as a matter of fact she has cut her google Adwords spend by about 75% and she is still bringing in twice the volume she did last year. The only major change is the Express Checkout Hack we wrote.

Trust me - we didn't approach this lightly - we told her she was crazy - that noone wants to shop without creating an account. I mean none of us do that - but none of us are grannys who sit at home and sew and hate being on the computer. That is her primary customer. We went through all the channels of speaking to developers at Early Impact as to whether there was a future release that had this level of express checkout option and we were assured it would not happen.

So we did what we had to satisfy the customer, and happily for us, it has made a tremendous improvement in her sales. Most of her customers checkout that way believe it or not. So maybe amazon and the other major retailers you mentioned might want to take a lesson. Pottery Barn for Kids has this feature and i'm sure its for a reason.

Again it might not be right for every business, and you and I might not shop that way, but her customers do and it was right for her store. It may be a feature you should consider building in!

ssharp - thanks for the comments.

Based on your ideas, I am inspired to also do this hack. I get a number of customers who are highly conservative and reticent to provide an email. Providing choice is IMO a good thing. Currently, I get good conversion once the customer has registered but the drop -off between viewcart and registering is quiet high.

In our store we also have several "granny" types that are either not able to check email or not comfortable "registering" with anyone.  What happens is that they then call us on the phone and it takes valuable time to take their order manually.  (BTW it would be nice to have a "quick phone order" interface within admin.)

We have always entered these customers with a dummy email and pw and although they don't get emails, we realize that they wouldn't anyway as many don't even check their email on a regular basis.  We flag these orders so that we know contact needs to be by phone.  Maybe there would be an option for "no email" in the express version.

I really like the idea of the "Express Checkout" as long it is clear that communications from us are always by email so they would lose that ability to receive confirming, tracking and order change emails.  Many times the customer only intends to order one time only and unfortunately we have to respect that and make it easier for them.  Walking into a brick & mortar store is what we don't want them to do and they are generally only asked for a zip code if that.

I know that customers still have to enter all the info for name address phone etc but calling it "express" and not making things "required" goes a long way for many potential customers and saves our customer service dept. time on the phone.  We currently don't use the "no password required" feature because it doesn't solve the no email problem. It is easy for us who are online all the time to forget that there are many folks out there still very unfamiliar with the web and email. 

Please let us know if a mod is written that can do this automatically.


Edited by cpgmar - 29-November-2007 at 10:39am

I think that is great, if it helps...the fear factor is really tangible for so many people.  Please let me know if this modification can be done.