Registration types and the logic behind them

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Registration types and the logic behind them

Postby loppan » Mon Apr 18, 2022 11:08 am

Hi,

I have a lot of returning customers in my store. Which is a good thing :). However, many customers forget to login before they buy. So even when they have an account, many purchases go through as guest purchases. This is not a big problem, but it's not optimal. I give rewards for reviews and testimonials but these things require an account of course.

So I have been playing around with vm registration settings lately. I'm almost there, but I'm not happy with either solution. Please let me explain.

With registration type set to "optional or guest" I get the following results :

If customer tries to checkout as guest but has the same e-mail registered to an account already, opc throws the string "COM_VIRTUEMART_STRING_ERROR_NOT_UNIQUE_NAME". This is good! However, if customer ignores that "warning", and do not click the "Create account"-button and enter matching passwords, the new order is saved as a guest purchase, even though customer already has an account. So the customer can login and view his orders, but the latest order won't be in that list. That is confusing.

IF the customer actually clicks "create account", enter the same password, then the new order is associated with the users old account. This is great! But it requires that the customer enters any new password two times. I don't fully understand the logic here, I must admit.

I would prefer if all new orders got associated with current accounts, IF the customer already has an account (e-mails match).

I can disable "Enable duplicit emails in any type of registration", but this will prevent the customer from checking out at all as guest if there already is an account, and this is not a good solution either. I'd rather have guest checkouts, than no checkouts :). (customer will lose patience I'm afraid, can't remember password, too much hassle to buy :)).

As an option, I can change registration type to silent. In this mode, ALL new orders are associated with current user accounts. Perfect! But the thing is, I still want to allow guest checkouts for those who prefer, I know not everybody wants to have accounts with passwords on too many sites. I don't want to force user accounts on those who don't want it.
- - -
So, I guess I want the best of both worlds. I want to allow guest checkout, but I want all new orders to automatically associate with current user accounts - IF there is an account already (matching e-mail addresses).

For now, I have put a message on the cart page recommending guests to login (or create account), because they get benefits :). But I don't know how much effect this will have.

Stan, what are your thoughts on this? Is my reasoning making any sense? There could be settings I'm missing too. Please advise :).

Thanks

Best regards

Peter
loppan
 
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Joined: Thu Oct 27, 2016 7:26 am

Re: Registration types and the logic behind them

Postby admin » Fri Nov 25, 2022 5:03 pm

as per the current custom works per a customer there are new features in this respect in 432 version, let me explain generally:

"duplicate emails/usernames" should allow to associate orders of those users who:
- used same email address as already registred one

these orders then at BE order list will have links to user accounts associated with them.

this only works if OPC works in single-step templates (where registration and order submit are at the same page)

within the very latest 432 version if a user account is created during OPC checkout and user is not logged in automatically (due to activation restrictions) the user ID is stored in session and this user ID is then associated with the order created. so once the user gets activated, he can still view his order history - so this should possibly do what you'd need.

the other way it could also work - if you modify your order list templates, you might want to pick up orders per email, not just per user ID of the user.

in general:
- no registration (not #__virtuemart_userinfos gets created and no user_id association exists within order tables)
- normal registration (#__virtuemart_userinfos gets popuplated with BT and optionall/or forcefully by ST ) - depending on activation user might get logged in to the site or not, association of user_id to order depends also on "duplicate emails" + latest 431 version that detects registration without login vs new order
- optional registration (same as no registration vs normal registration) - guest vs normal registration
- silent registration - creates passwords automatically for the user

joomla's activation can be disabled within opc checkout in a few ways - globally in opc config, or per custom logic (b2b vs b2c customer per moss plugin shopper group configs, or 3rd party plugins)
joomla's activation plays a main role in having the user logged in or not after a sucesfull registration.

best regards, stan
admin
Site Admin
 
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