Guest account in general

[Havouza]

Hi! What is the real difference between a registered account and the guest account? Still, most info must be stored.

[MockoB]

The difference is that the customer order history is saved in his account and he/she could check previous orders at any time. And in the back office you may see the client history also. Also the customer doesn't have to write his details every order. It is really stupid that you can't check the client history in the back office if he every time places an order as guest. You have to manually look for the name...

[Havouza]

Out of a customer perspective, it is in my view cheating. The only difference is a password really. Has nothing to do with anonymous shopping where the customer info is not saved after the order is completed. It would ofc be very easy to get the info if you wanted and I don't think that is what the customer think

[MockoB]

Actually the customer looks for fastest checkout and registration is always slowing the process, that's from my point of view. And I really can't see how customers could place anonymous orders, at least how could we arrange delivery for John Doe without personal information :)

[Havouza]

That is not the question. It would be possible to delete the info let say when status is delivered. And the only difference in time is what it take to write a password. But anyhow. I think that about 75% of my customers use the guest account possibility. If you look at my shop you see why. I have not asked but I am quite convinced that they are somehow anonymous when they have bought, That nothing is saved about them that can be misused in some way. But there is no real difference. They are all saved in the account table, the only difference is that they are flagged as a guest account and no password is saved. But it would be very easy to get all the info about them.

It's a hypothetical discussion but interesting

[MockoB]

My customers also prefer guest checkout and I am selling jewelry. And I have customers with many orders and they still use guest checkout I don't know why, it could be anonymousy they want... it is about time for decent module for deleting orders in the core, because deleting customers is not enough. But I don't see anybody doing something about it, I read somewhere that it could be illegal, maybe that is the reason don't having such functionality.

[Havouza]

There is a module that take away orders. It is even free I think. Made by third party I dont remeber who now. Its called deleteorders free. But you can be right about the legality

[MockoB]

I think the module was wrote by Vekia, but in the forum topic I read that it doesn't clear all database entries and there was no interest from him to fix it.

[Havouza]

If there is some interest I will ask my Sri Lanka developer what he can do. He do a lot of scripts for me to automate everything

[wakabayashi]

We have also a lot of people, who chose guest checkout. We will disable it soon. I don't like how this is handled. Only makes troubles. I think it's a matter of language. Customer believs he is anonymous and needs to put less information. But that is crap...

We have even some customer, which complain that the "password forget" is not working, then we check and understand that they always ordered as guest...

[Havouza]

It would be a BIG mistake for us to disable it. But we will make it more as I want it to be

[wakabayashi]

Why you think so?

[Havouza]

I know how sensitive our products still are for the customers year 2017. And all statistics show that guest checkout gives more business. But I want it to be real guest checkout, that take away the customer info when the order is delivered

[Traumflug]

@Havouza

@Havouza said in Guest account in general:

I want it to be real guest checkout, that take away the customer info when the order is delivered

Can this be done? What about revocations? I'd at least wait 28 days before deletion.

What about the warranty period? If you get the stuff back as defect after a year, how do you deal with this, without even an Email address?

What about legal duties? Here in Germany, all tax relevant documents have to be stored for several years. Especially invoices and money transactions. Invoices contain all user data, so all the stuff is stored anyways.

[Havouza]

Everything can be done, the practical and legal problems are something else.

The other possibility is to really state for the Guest customers what is saved about them

[Traumflug]

P.S.: certainly a useful feature would be a function to package data no longer needed for ongoing business as a downloadable ZIP, then to remove this stuff from the database of the public web server. What's not there can't be hacked, undoubtly a security improvement.

[Traumflug]

@Havouza said in Guest account in general:

to really state for the Guest customers what is saved about them

That's certainly something you should put into your privacy declaration.

[Havouza]

I think mine cover that and much more. There is not a word about guest account

[Smile]

I was thinking, why not make a guest checkout in such a way that it is actually a real account without a password given by the customer. When they later like to make a real account they just need the password... This prevents the issue that guest account can not be moved to a real account, what often happens....

Yes, I know its an old topic but still an issue 😮