Just as people today worry about security breaches regarding their credit card information, they also have qualms about sharing any information, including their email addresses. Additionally, with the size of the internet today and the prevalence of social media, online banking and bill paying, and more, many people are tired of signing up and creating passwords. After all, passwords get lost, and your customers likely already have several logins to keep track of across various sites.

Some people will leave an online store if they’re required to create yet another login and password just to check out. Others hate the idea of using their email address to create an account, out of fears that it will be sold to other advertisers, resulting in an influx of spam to their inboxes.

This is a bigger problem with first-time customers who aren’t familiar with your store yet, and some of the measures you might take when increasing your online store’s trustworthiness (Lesson 4) can also help customers feel safe creating a login. However, even if they trust your store, some customers simply won’t want to remember a password and will be reluctant to make an account at all. Whatever their reasons, if your online store requires the customer to create an account, some will be turned off by this and abandon their carts.

Allowing Checkout with No Signup

To solve this problem and serve these customers, implement the ability to check out as a guest.

Of course, in many cases, an email will still be required to complete an order, as you’ll need a way to send the customer their receipt and tracking numbers, but to some customers this doesn’t seem as threatening as “giving you” their email for account creation purposes. It’s just a matter of perception.

There are definite advantages to having customers sign up for accounts, so you can still entice customers to register by offering incentives such as reward points and other loyalty programs. Customers are more likely to make repeat purchases if they’ll accrue rewards, even if they’re already fine with needing to make an account.

3dcart has easy guest checkout implementation, and you can also turn off the email requirement completely. If you allow orders with no email provided, make it clear to your customers that without an email, they have no way of receiving order update notifications! Reward points and loyalty programs are also easy to create.