Yeah that's the thing. It's just pschology effect. I believe best thing is this:
- New customers order without entering a password
- After the order was sent, they are asked if they wanna use a personal password.
- In backoffice I would handle them all the same, based on their email.
If somebody reoders with same email
- Case 1: He didn't chose a password. -> He won't see any personal data in front office -> psychologial effect.
- Case 2: He did chose a password -> he logs in & checks out fast as hell ;)
Edit: @mdekker, @lesley. I just wondered if it would be possible to have just a single email field. With ajax we check, if there already exists an account/password. If yes we display immediatly a password field and customer can login. If the email is new or was only used as guest, he will again follow the whole checkout path.
I think this would be a userfriendly way to combine account & guest checkout. But not sure if ajax call will be fast enough, to have a smoth user expierence.