Our team is currently working on a gas station app. Thee are in-app purchases, so we need users to register.
When should we ask users to register with our app?
Our team has considered two options
ask for registration right after a user opens the app for the first time;
when a user opens the app for the first time, we show him a map with the nearest gas stations. We ask for registration only when he chooses the gas station he wants to get to.
Go with option two.
Users will more likely register if they have seen something they want. In your case; use a gas station.
Duolingo has one of the best ways of doing exactly that. Duolingo lets you choose what you want, play with it and get an achievement before even mentioning registration. Check it out!
When you get to the point of registration, you're happy with what you have and registration feels like a small logical step.
There it is! The registration screen. Only they don’t call it that. I am nicely told that in order to save my progress I need to “Create a Profile”. It makes sense and everything was easy up to this point, so I do.
Source: How Duolingo converted me with their awesome on-boarding process.
Agreed - Option 2 would reduce abandonment.
In ecommerce we've seen checkouts shift away from asking users to register upfront, offering guest checkouts with the ability to 'save the details' after a purchase is complete.
Capturing the users email address early in the process is another familiar pattern across online shopping journeys, typically on the first page of the checkout. By the end of the journey we've captured all the users information required to create a registration, the only thing left for the user to do, is simply create at password (once, none of that re-confirm 'BS' though)
You could challenge whether a registration is even necessary, if your in-app purchase journey is seamless, users might be satisfied or prepared to go through the process again, especially if they aren't frequent users. I'd check your data on that one.
I think a third option might be more appropriate. Give the user the opportunity to see what features are available to them when they select the gas station, such as seeing gas prices, making a purchase, etc. (I don't know what features your app actually offers so this could make a difference). Once they actually are going to take an action via the app that requires them to be logged in, then ask for registration. Unless there is more to your app that I don't know about, just selecting the gas station and asking the user to log in isn't enough to entice them to go through the process of registration. You need to let them see in advance what you are offering them and how they will benefit from registration.
