Registering to buy something - Why?

[nillerrune]

I found the newsletter where Martin Thorborg write about the issue with "Registering to buy something"

Martin Thorborgs Nyhedsbrev nr. 15

It is in Danish, but I will give you the numbers of sales he reckons you will lose:

He estimate that a shop will lose 50% of their sales because of this!

He help a website called Velkommen til Oestrogen.dk - Danmarks største portal for kvinder. - Oestrogen.dk which is made by a TV talk host called Pernille Aalund. He made some changes to her site and over the next 6 month sales had gone up around four times. He believe that the main reason for this huge rise in sales was the removal of "Registering to buy something" feature

A little background on Martin:

He founded one of the first independent ISP's in Denmark in 1995

They get a lot of call from customer who can not remember the names of websites they have visit and ask for it – He has described it as Google over the phone

They therefore create Jubii - Forsiden portal and later search engine, Jubii is later sold to Lycos.
He have been involved as an consultant in several websites and have written in articles in large amount of the press in Denmark.

His latest creation Spam Filter for Outlook and Express, Windows Mail and Servers - SPAMfighter has just won the prize the yearly prize for growth from IT magazine Computerworld - Computerworld

On top of that the have founded the largest forum for entrepreneurs in Denmark Iværksætter Debatten Amino and is one of the first people to be called when journalist have a question about the internet and shopping.

Here is what he say about himself in English: Martin Thorborgs homepage about his life and peptalks

I think that a loss of 50% of potential customer sounds quite high, but I can only guess on what it is as I have not experience on the subject other than what I read. On the Danish forum Amino other web shops have mention that it has increased sales after they remove the feature, as I mention before I think some of them said they saw an increase of 5-6%. I have not been able to find the post where it was mention.

But it would be interesting to hear what happens with DeadGoodUndies - Mens Designer Underwear, Mens Underwear, if you do any changes to your site.

[Hero]

digging back to my merchant days

first of all, merchants use the registration cause that's the most effective way to collect data, which is a highly valuable thing to possess. If they only collect data from customers who buy, they won't have many people to entice. For customers who are afraid that they will be spammed, if they have the intention of completing an order, they agree to be receiving emails from the merchant, unless they opt out. This opt in/out option will be in the registration process and in their profile details. If they buy without registering, they will still be spammed without the ability to amend their preferences, apart from clicking on the "unsubscribe" link in the email (and, let's face it, most merchants either don't have it or don't respect it).

However, the compulsory registration only leads to multiple logins for the same customer - most customers do not remember the logins, especially in the case where a specific format needs to be followed which is inconvenient for them. Unless the "password reminder" works straight away, most people will either create a new account or simply give up.

What I always argue is: if it's good enough for Amazon to offer registration free purchases, why is it not good enough for the other retailers?

[Barry]

I am a bloke, - I hate shopping online and offline and I am sure there must be be more of me (god help us, no CSA claims, twins, or paradigms please) out there. And I hate registration processes, whats wrong with collecting information on the purchase and then formulating a login for account purposes after the cart process?

I have even encountered merchants that after you register even dump the stuff in your cart. Don't merchants test this user experience? From the article posted it seems that there perhaps are alot of other people like me that give up and go elsewhere.

Ta

[cyates]

i agree..
i hate stores ( like when i was trying to get a wii recently ), that your in a hurry to make the purchase.. then they make you register first .. ARRGGGHH !

drives me mad.. stop doing it folks !

[kathymoger]

What really bugs me are the sites that want to store your credit card details for future transactions. This is marketed as a 'convenience' for the customer. They should only ever be stored until completion of the current transaction and never stored any longer than needed.

Whilst I agree that credit card details stored on a secure server are probably safer than details stored in some high street shops, servers do get hacked and there have been some high profile cases where credit card details have been obtained this way. Surely it makes sense for a minimum number of these details to be kept for an absolute minimum of time?

[harryganz]

We (Total Health and Beauty at The Garden Pharmacy) have recently switched from non-registering to our new site which requires registering.
The advantages for the customer are huge:
1. They can look up past orders
2. they can track orders
3. They can collect loyalty points
4. They do not need to enter details again

From our point of view;
1 It encourages site loyalty
2 We can log in while a customer is on line to help them if they need help.
3. It encourages site loyalty
4. We can target-market to those customer who wish it. This gives an enormous conversion rate.

We have not (since we changed on 1st October), had a single adverse comment, but lots of positive feedback about the benefits listed above!

[sgpratley]

Registering and leaving details is a good thing for those who want it, and I'm sure that in your business there are enough repeat customers that it makes it worthwhile for a fair number of them.

It would be worth actually telling people about those benefits on the login page also. I know you've got links about your loyalty scheme down the side, but you don't want to pull people out of the checkout process if you don't have to.

However, the benefits for someone making a single sale that arrives on time are pretty much nil, and someone that gives up a purchase because they have to register is hardly going to take the time to complain about it.

I'd definitely take the time to add a 'check out without registering' option and see what effect it has on sales.

Have a look at this one that we've done recently:
Buy gifts and jewelry online at the I Love Flirt UK jewelry store

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Giving the customer the "option" seems the most sensible solution.

I bought something yesterday from Kodak, at first it looked like regsistering was the only option and was about to look elsewhere, then not so vivid was the non registering option, thus I proceeded with purchase.

[Julie H]

I bought something yesterday from Kodak, at first it looked like regsitering was the only option and was about to look elsewhere, then not so vivid was the non registering option, thus I proceeded with purchase.

Hmm, I wonder what you bought and for whom you bought it? Inspector Clouseau is on the case ....

[FSleads]

exactly.... this is an avenue to make more money by selling customers' data and apparently people are not very well educated to take care of their personal info until they get into a hectic situation. customers are the main issue in this case as if they don't give away their details businesses wouldn't take advantage of them. businesses always try to mend losses they experience during the course of their operation regardless of industry. businesses also make it difficult for customers to understand their rights by uploading small prints and 10s of pages so called terms and conditions. I think there should be stiffer rules in this regards.

anyway it is a mutual guilt shared between businesses and customers. i.e. lack of knowledge from customers and taking advantage of this by businesses.

[sgpratley]

I think there should be stiffer rules in this regards

There are, but there aren't the resources to enforce them except in the worst of cases .
Selling email data that has been gathered without the correct opt-ins is a criminal offence in the UK.

This is isn't the same thing as registration though which is all about creating account details to access your own data and additional services.

[AttractionTix]

Two words: Poor Design

Its as simple as that! In most cases sites that ask a user to register before they can buy are badly designed. It puts me off too - and statistically it represents a huge cut in a sites conversion rate to enforce user reg. Having said that there are sites out there that do need to have users register first, these sites fall into the very regular customers bracket.

Our main site (Disneyland Paris Tickets, Port Aventura Tickets, Alton Towers Tickets & more - AttractionTix) for example does not ask a user to register, but once you have bought a product from us you are automatically registered. Your email address and order number form your username / password combo. This detail is then used to access our customer service area. The nature of our client tends toward single or infrequent transactions so at the moment we do not offer a full registration service. If this changed we would - but again it would not be a requirement to purchase.

You just have to make your buying process as simple as possible, try not to give your customer any reason to leave your site. Things like hidden postage costs or credit card fees are more prime examples of greed leading to stupidity.

Sorry if i seem to come across quite strong on this, its one of my pet annoyances.

[ursfehr]

yes, it is very painful to register everywhere and certainly you reg.data is something merchants take as an extra bonus for their profits you deliver. I have seen many spam e-mails sent to those non-trivial addresses used only for online shopping..

[fizzbird]

Sorry if i seem to come across quite strong on this, its one of my pet annoyances.

No need to apologise, I've lost count of the number of transactions I have abandoned because of this issue.

As a relative newcomer to this arena I can already confirm that the merchants who convert the best are the ones who have the simplest buying process.

[lauriebred]

No need to apologise, I've lost count of the number of transactions I have abandoned because of this issue.

As a relative newcomer to this arena I can already confirm that the merchants who convert the best are the ones who have the simplest buying process.

The first law of salesmanship that I learned around half a century ago was KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid! If I have to register or jump through hoops to get a price or make a one-off purchase I either make the details up or give up and go somewhere else. Forcing people to register is about as sensible as making them listen to a recorded "All our operators are busy, your call is important to us" telephone message when all they want is an answer to a simple query over the phone. We have too many technicians and too few experienced business people today, IMHO.