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I'm working on building an ecommerce solution. I have a question: I request the registration of the address of the user when the user creates one or only at the time of checkout?

Is there any A / B testing on the case? I found some for taking my question.

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there's a reason why most of the e-commerce systems allow you to shop around without registering: if you have a full basket, that means you're half-committed already, and you're less likely to leave the stuff behind. I'm sure Expedia and Amazon both did A/B tests on this. – Aadaam Aug 15 '12 at 20:20
Email address or shipping address? I assume you mean email address, as in part of making an account? – Ben Brocka♦ Aug 15 '12 at 20:52
Shipping or home address. In Brazil is usually to use forms in e-commerce sites requesting the home address in the moment of de registration user. – Jefferson Vasconcelos Aug 15 '12 at 22:11
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OK, but that moment should be when the user starts the checkout. Otherwise (s)he might say: "You know what? No." The whole point of the Amazon-style process is to have the "feeling of ownership" as long as possible, building up needed effort slowly "click -> basket", "checkout", "do you have an ID with us? if no, no problem, just give us an e-mail address and a password" "ok,so,you want these, right? how you want them to be shipped?" "you'll have them by tomorrow, where you want to have it shipped?" "ok, so, Mr X, you'll have this by tomorrow here-May I have your credit card pls?" Aand PROFIT! – Aadaam Aug 16 '12 at 2:16

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

Requiring registration before payment can be extremely expensive in lost sales. Instead, offer it as a convenience at the end of the checkout process.

(Avoid having to enter this information next time, simply by creating a password now. You'll also have access to your order history this way, which makes returns easier.)

Compelling rationale by Tog: http://www.asktog.com/columns/081Registration.html

See also "lazy registration" and "gradual engagement" for more examples and guidelines on the Web.

Never ask for information you don't need in order to complete the transaction. You can ask about that stuff later, when your bottom line doesn't depend on it, for example in a user profile form or opt-in survey.

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up vote 0 down vote

I literally just read an article on this, so I'll be kind and share it.

http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button

Increased annual sales by 45% (300 million dollars) by making registration optional.

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