Any way to avoid asking customers for their email info?

[alexaj]

Hi Tyson and all,



My website stats are showing that I'm losing a lot of sales because customers don't want to have to give me an email address to purchase the product. Is there ANY way at all to skip this part of the purchase process and simply process the payment and send them to a download page without the email sign up? (If there is an obvious way that I didn't see, my apologies for being dense.)



Any information or suggestions anyone could provide on this issue would be VERY helpful!



Best,

Alexa

[E-junkie_Guru]

For buyers checking out via PayPal and logging into their PayPal account to render payment, buyers would only provide an email address as their PayPal account login, so the buyer is never asked for their email again after login, and we simply send the thank-you email to their registered PayPal email.



For buyers using the optional card-based checkout option on PayPal's site without logging into nor registering a new PayPal account, I think PayPal still requires an email to complete the sale and send the buyer a payment receipt email.



PayPal does not and cannot auto-redirect the buyer to any thank-you page after checkout.



If PayPal notifies our system that the buyer's payment was good and completed by the time the buyer finishes their checkout, then the buyer can optionally choose to click a link on PayPal's site to continue past checkout to reach their thank-you page where we present their download link.



If there's any delay in processing the payment on PayPal's end leaving payment incomplete by the time the buyer tries clicking that link, the buyer will only see a generic thank-you page instructing them to watch their email for further information.



Once PayPal notifies our system of completed payment, we issue the buyer a thank-you email with a link to reach the thank-you/download page, as a failsafe to ensure the buyer can claim their download in case they did not or could not proceed to their actual download page after checkout.



Also, we're not clear how website stats could demonstrate that buyers are abandoning any orders specifically because of the issue of an email address?

[alexaj]

Thanks for the info, Tyson.



I think I did find a way through your Fat Free shopping cart. Although I think, as is posted on another thread that I read, some of us are still confused about the difference between the standard e-Junkie account and Fat Free shopping cart in terms of pricing and features!



As to your question re: page abandonment and email addresses, there is of course no way to know for sure what a customer starts to make a purchase and then stops, but my web stats do show where buyers go when they leave the site, and often, they make it as far as ejunkie but don't complete the transaction. Since as I previously had it set up, a big (and kinda scary) request for personal information came up when they left my site to check out, it's a reasonable marketing conclusion that buyers didn't want to give their personal information and so changed their mind. Again, no way to know for sure, but when it comes to ecommerce, that's a pretty good guess -- which is why I want to test what happens if they don't have to enter that info (for me -- I know PayPal will still require it, but PayPal is a trusted brand name and I alas am not... yet.)



I hope that makes sense and answers your question! Thanks for all you guys do. :-)



Alexa

[E-junkie_Guru]

FWIW, actual sales-conversion rates are typically surprisingly low for online sales, but this is primarily because most online buyers who seem to begin building an order have no intention of following through with an actual purchase in the first place, not because anything "deters" them from making a purchase.



Buyers can browse your site and "fantasy shop" and Add to Cart various items to their heart's content without making any commitment, but when they go to checkout and are faced with the prospect of actually parting with their hard-earned money, if they're going to change their mind and abandon their order at any point, that's the point where they almost always do so.