Option to Automatically Create Accounts in the Background

[pippinsplugins]

We should add an option to automatically create user accounts during checkout, but without requiring the user enter a password or any other typical account info.

When enabled, this option would simply take the email address entered on checkout and create a new user account with an auto generated password. The email address would be set to the username.

There are several major advantages to this:

• Increased conversion rate due to not having people drop of because of the "Create an Account" hurdle
• Elimination of the problem we currently see where customers purchase as guests and then come back later to register an account but don't have their previous purchases connected

[chriscct7]

Furthering this idea, if the user's entered email already exists in the system, associate the purchase with that account

[chriscct7]

Whoops that idea is #1173

[pippinsplugins]

Yep.

[pippinsplugins]

When a purchase is made with this option enabled, a user account should be created with the email address as the username and a randomly generated password. The user should also be logged into the new account before getting sent to the payment gateway.

[pippinsplugins]

If this option is enabled, then I think the Registration form shown with Show Register / Login Form? should be removed. The login form should remain.

[chriscct7]

Do we need to put an alert letting them (the customers) know they are getting an account?

[pippinsplugins]

Possibly, though perhaps that should be left to the site owner?

[chriscct7]

I would think we should have some sort of premade notice that users could toggle on/off. With a filter on the default message

[douglsmith]

Using the e-mail address as the username has some privacy ramifications. If the user comments on the site then their e-mail address will be exposed publicly. The same goes for conversations and profile pages if the site also uses bbPress or BuddyPress. I have a site with another e-commerce plugin that has an e-mail as username feature and it was a big customer support hassle dealing with users whose address was visible when they posted to our bbPress forums.

The user should also be logged into the new account before getting sent to the payment gateway.

This would mean that the user gets logged in without going through an e-mail verification loop to prove they control the address. That means someone could end up with an account associated with someone else's e-mail address, which could be used for a variety of nefarious purposes.

Furthering this idea, if the user's entered email already exists in the system,
associate the purchase with that account

Combined with the auto-login, this could be used to leak a user's past purchase information if someone knew only their e-mail address.

[pippinsplugins]

Good points!

Let's nix the auto login and instead send the verification email. Do you think that will take care of the privacy issues? That would also give them the chance to update their profile with a first/lat name, thus getting around the privacy issue. Agreed?

[douglsmith]

Yes, proving control of the e-mail eliminates those issues. And anything that pushes account creation to after the sale takes care of cart abandonment due to asking to create an account.

Personally, the sites I think handle it best are those that complete the sale then offer to let me create an account. They usually explain the benefits of doing so and sometimes offer an incentive.

[pippinsplugins]

Ohh, that is an interesting idea as well. I think I'm going to pull this from 1.6 so that we can think about it more. Some things to consider:

• If we create the account during purchase, do we send them a custom "verify your account" email, or the standard WP one?
• Do we send users to the default WP user profile editor for updating their account or to the EDD profile short code? If we sent to a page with the EDD profile short code, we'd have to add an additional option to figure out where that page is (or search for it by the short code).

[cklosowski]

On the point of where do you send them for updating their account, I'd say to the EDD Profile Page containing the short code. This keeps their User Experience consistent with the site owner's design and doesn't off load them into the WordPress admin.

I think the standard WP verification would work fine, but maybe offer the ability to customize that, like EDD does with other areas? Just a thought, but the standard would do.

[pippinsplugins]

Sending them to the profile editor seems like the way to go to me. It'd be cool if we could extend it to include the activation system as well :D

[cklosowski]

Ooooo, I REALLY like that. The built in activation system always seems like I'm jumping through flaming hoops.

Edit: when you say "profile editor" you mean the EDD one right? not the stock profile editor?

[pippinsplugins]

Yes I mean the EDD profile editor.

[pippinsplugins]

Punting to 1.9 for further discussion.

[pippinsplugins]

I think we should close this as #wontfix since @sumobi wrote his EDD Auto Register plugin.

I don't see a major point for including this in core anymore since we have the free extension.

Anyone disagree? @chriscct7 @ghost1227 @spencerfinnell

[chriscct7]

I agree