July 18, 2024
LAS VEGAS – How many usernames and passwords do you have? Do you really want another? The dreaded “login required” and/or “create an account” message is still around, and it pops up on countless websites.
Prosper Show media addressed the topic in a highly-searched blog post more than five years ago where older studies revealed that roughly 20% of shoppers will leave a website that requires a login prior to buying. It’s fair to say that “creating an account” still annoys a sizable percentage of shoppers.
“Requiring login might add friction at checkout and hurt your conversion rate,” concedes Steve “Sagie” Kraidman, CEO of Perfume Spot LLC, Edison, N.J. “On the other hand, capturing that login data ultimately means being able to market directly to customers and knowing what they are looking at/shopping for. It also allows for faster checkouts and loyalty programs that add up to better upsell/cross-marketing based on profile.”
Still, the risk of losing customers is real whenever you ask people to take action. According to Matt Remuzzi, owner of CapForge Bookkeeping, Tax & More, one remedy is to make the task of creating an account easy and make sure that only minimal effort is required. “The benefit is you now have a higher chance of future monetization and better marketing opportunities,” says Remuzzi, echoing Kraidman’s comments. “The ones you lose were less likely to be dedicated customers anyway, so as long as the process is as frictionless as possible it’s usually worth it.”
“If your goal is a quicker path to conversion, then one of the benefits of asking potential customers to create an account is that they will already be in your system,” confirms Shannon Curley, director of Marketing, Carbon6 Technologies. “That makes any conversion opportunity more seamless, and allows you to leverage assets like in-app ads to simplify upsell and cross-sell. Though some potential customers may be turned off by the instant-commitment model, any customers who follow-through on account creation automatically show more qualified interest, which should make closing the deal more achievable and efficient.”
On the other hand, Curley points out that signing up for an account can be a barrier to entry for many potential customers who are not quite ready to commit. These customers are wise enough to the ways of ecommerce to know that once you create an account, that business has got your number (literally and figuratively). “This can deter top-of-funnel prospects in particular from continuing to explore what your business has to offer,” Curley laments, “ultimately shrinking your pool of potential customers in the long-run.”
A third option is asking buyers to create a guest login, which streamlines the process and allows them to go straight for the purchase. This “token of goodwill” may translate into loyalty down the road.
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