Mandatory Registration is a No No
Conversion Optimisation
A few months back one of my posts at half-geek talked about the big mistake many shopping carts make by making it mandatory to register when checking out. By registering I mean making them enter a password when checking out that they would then use to access their account and checkout in the future.
My good friends at getalastic today released a post called checkout inspiration from top converting sites which I thought was very interesting. It backs up the fact that making a user register does cause friction and will result in cart abandoment which any shopping cart can do without.
Looking at Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts which lists the top 10 ecommerce converting sites, you may notice that some of the sites listed here do make you register when checking out. Don’t always do what the leaders in your field do, they may well find it more efficient to loose some sales in order to complete some other business goal.
