Ecommerce: Don’t Scare off Potential Sales – Allow Guest Purchases and Achieve 23% More Business!

How annoying is it when you really want to purchase something quickly online, only to go right through the checkout process and suddenly be asked to login or sign up. Okay, if you own an online store your aim is to establish long term customers by collecting email addresses and then sending out promotional material, newsletters and Christmas cards etc – yes I said Christmas cards – it’s only 3 months away!…

…Anyway, back to my point. Could you not just allow a guest customer to check out and then provide an option to save personal information post the transaction, that way you have guaranteed the sale.

So why am I ranting about this. I shall tell you. 23% of shoppers will run a mile when asked to register with your site (According to Forrester Research). So rather than lose out on sales just allow guest purchases through your shopping cart system. Another compelling reason to allow guest checkouts is that visitors lose patience when they can’t remember login details – and what a chore it is going through the password reset process. With only 25% of customers on average ever finishing the checkout process you need to make the process as flexible and straight forward as possible.

These statistics are compelling, and with so many sites not offering guest purchasing, the fact that your online store does will serve as a good web site promotion technique. “No login required” is very attractive to those worried about parting with personal details or simply wanting a quick service.