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Rodney · May 2nd, 2007

Quote:


	I was wondering where the user settings were! LOL

Yep, all the forum navigation is down the left hand side of the site. The "Your Control Panel" link will take you to all kinds of cool settings

oddica · May 2nd, 2007

I guess I'm surprised that people who are cruising T-shirt sites would
get offended or upset when they are asked to create an account.

but you learn something odd every day, eh?

surveying the people here:

if you are giving Best-Practice Tips to someone building a new e-commerce T-shirt website ... do you

1) tell them to omit the Create Account option?

2) tell them to include the Create Account option?

Assuming they are selling standard phrase- or art-related tees.

I'd suggest (2) ... imho, the pros outweigh the cons.

TomandBunny · May 3rd, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by oddica


	surveying the people here: if you are giving Best-Practice Tips to someone building a new e-commerce T-shirt website ... do you 1) tell them to omit the Create Account option? 2) tell them to include the Create Account option? Assuming they are selling standard phrase- or art-related tees.

on the whole account creation thing, I am only assuming you have it and it has touched a nerve with you, don't get me wrong, run your site the way you feel you should run it and just because I feel a specific way doesn't carry any weight at all. just as I said in previous post, I will run my site the way I deem fit and nobody will argue their views enough to change my way of doing things if I feel it is working for me.

My big thing I guess is I worked with a programmer who made everything in his code so difficult for people to use, no matter what we did, he wanted to protect his code or source so much that it was like pulling teeth to buy anything and I couldn't change him on that and it directly effected me because it was my sites he was coding.

so creating the whole account thing just reminds me of all that and it annoys me to no end is all. also, your correct, at check out you need to put pretty much everything there anyway

Name
Email Address
Shipping Address
Billing Address

To create an account you add in a username (good sites will use your email address) and a password.

Then add in the security question, do you want to receive the newsletter or sales etc...

This are good but again more steps have been added.

Then there are my programmer friends! they want to Confirm everything! so before you can actually pay, they want the site to email you a confirmation to make sure the email you gave actually is a real email address

and to make a final closure on all of this, you can not on most sites find out what the total with shipping is going to be until you create the account! all I wanted to know was what the total was going to be!

Like Ebay, how many times do you see where a shirt cost 12.99 but the shipping is 15.00!

I am just curious sometimes as to what I will be paying before I decided to go through all of that.

Now maybe, just maybe if I can get all the information and I am actually ready to plop down my credit card information and buy something, I know exactly what the Shipping, handling, Tax and whatever else, I might fill in the account information! But honestly if I need to do that before I buy I won't do it. too much trouble.

and that is one of the main reasons I came up with a What you see as a price is what you pay period mentality for my site.

Solmu · May 3rd, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by oddica


	I guess I'm surprised that people who are cruising T-shirt sites would get offended or upset when they are asked to create an account.

I think offended and upset are both way too strong, but I agree with Rodney that I don't like it. Sometimes things like shipping rates are hiding behind that account creation, and you should never put anything between me and my shipping rates

Quote:

Originally Posted by oddica


	if you are giving Best-Practice Tips to someone building a new e-commerce T-shirt website ... do you 1) tell them to omit the Create Account option? 2) tell them to include the Create Account option?

Create account option, yes. Create account requirement, no.

ieaturheart · May 3rd, 2007

ok so i just read 9 pages. dont really know what to say.

but some of you talked about flash for like 5 pages, lol. does anyone see anything wrong with this website. i mean it has music, and made in flash. but see i think it all depends on your market. for me it is a really sweet website and makes me want to go back.

also look at the shirts and models they have. definately it appeals to a whole different style of people and teenagers. i think it is an awesome website although it is missing/and has what many people believe are bad, ie flash, no prices up front, music.

idk but this is a website that is what im looking for when trying to find web designers to make my company a website. and wow web designers are not cheap like super super expensive, but i guess it is kind of price and demand.

anyway here is some websites that i have bought clothes from.

drop dead (the website i was refering to above)

bleeding star

rockett

no offense but i have a feeling most of you will hate this sites and believe they are not effective at capturing the customer and risk losing customers, but i have mixed emotions because i see how, mostly, all points made on this thread made sense. but then at the same time i know these are the 'big'/'popular' companies in the emo/scene/punk clothing arena.

-austin

oddica · May 3rd, 2007

no nerves touched, I just thought some of the compelling reasons NOT
to have account creation were not 100 percent valid.

different strokes for different folks, i can dig it.

Rodney · May 3rd, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by oddica


	I guess I'm surprised that people who are cruising T-shirt sites would get offended or upset when they are asked to create an account. but you learn something odd every day, eh? surveying the people here: if you are giving Best-Practice Tips to someone building a new e-commerce T-shirt website ... do you 1) tell them to omit the Create Account option? 2) tell them to include the Create Account option? Assuming they are selling standard phrase- or art-related tees. I'd suggest (2) ... imho, the pros outweigh the cons.

My advice to someone building an ecommerce website from scratch would be to leave the account creation as an OPTION but allow for a customer to checkout WITHOUT it if they choose

If you are brand new, you have a lot of trust to establish in a customer. That's another best practice in and of itself (making your website "trustworthy").

But by allowing it as an OPTION, you give customers the choice. They can still purchase from you if they are averse to creating an account, and the ones that you have earned their trust would have the OPTION to create an account.

For me, it's all about options

TiddliBoom.com · May 3rd, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodney


	My advice to someone building an ecommerce website from scratch would be to leave the account creation as an OPTION but allow for a customer to checkout WITHOUT it if they choose

Can't agree more. In fact, I think having obligatory registering is competely senseless. I remember a couple of years ago, I spent two weeks full time tweaking and bending Zencart into the shape I wanted for a client, only to find out that it had this immensely inane "feature" built-in, and no way to avoid unless you hacked the cart.

So I built my own cart for him instead.

I wonder how many would be happy to register at the pub before buying a beer or in the grocery store for a pack of cigarettes..... 3 out of 10,000?

TomandBunny · May 3rd, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodney


	M If you are brand new, you have a lot of trust to establish in a customer. That's another best practice in and of itself (making your website "trustworthy").

Excellent point and I like this one the best so far.

Solmu · May 4th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by oddica


	I just thought some of the compelling reasons NOT to have account creation were not 100 percent valid.

If I actually notice that a site has account creation, it's usually because there's some vital piece of information hidden behind it that shouldn't be, which is the real issue for me.

I can think of one eComms site I've spent about $2000 at I'd be quite annoyed at for not having an account feature I could use to look at past orders. On the other hand you need to have an account to see the shipping charges, which pisses me off.

Amazon.com's account system is total crap. I have an old account I want access to, I have no idea what the password is, and it won't give it to me. Why? Because I don't know the last four digits of the credit card number I used to place an order on there in about 1998 (and in the meanwhile there was an active wishlist on it).

So in my case it's not that I'm opposed to accounts (although on small sites I prefer not to have them), so much as I'm opposed to badly setup accounts.

Twinge · May 4th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodney


	I guess it's not too much about giving extra information (like a username/password), but more about having your private information stored by a company that you have no reason to trust. Going to an account creation screen by default is a turnoff. For example, places like cafepress moved the account creation stuff to the checkout page AFTER you've entered your shipping/billing information (on the same page). That way you can decide for yourself whether it's worth it at that point.

I can see that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodney


	If I have to choose a username and password, then I'm going to assume that my information is going to be stored, even if I click a checkbox. I would think why else are they asking for a username/password.

Yeah, and it probably would be - just have to manually delete it :P It was definitely a cop-out solution, but I wasn't able to think of anything I could directly do offhand to fix it --

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodney


	Here's one way with Zen Cart (most free carts have some type of add on contributed by the community that allows for checkout without an account): Contribution:Integrated Checkout Without Account - Zen Cart(tm) Wiki

But that might work. I didn't think of the obvious check for Zen Cart mods relating to the subject. I'll have to add that one to my massive list of things to change when I eventually get around to recreating my site.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rodney


	That doesn't work always. As I mentioned above, I've opted out (by never opting in), but some companies think that just because I ordered from them, I want to hear about every offer they may have about any related or non related business. By storing my information, it gives them easier access to use it later on if they have a new brilliant marketing idea that they want to share.

Of course, legally there should be an easy way to opt-out, so even if they DO send you an email message, you shouldn't get more than 1 if you don't want to. Obviously not everyone actually does this, though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by oddica


	I guess I'm surprised that people who are cruising T-shirt sites would get offended or upset when they are asked to create an account. but you learn something odd every day, eh?

I would wager that it is definitely a minority that really considers this an issue. I personally don't care. HOWEVER, it is one thing a person should consider when making their site - just like making it compatible for 800x600 resolutions. Just because less than 15% of people are using that resolution doesn't mean you should ignore it -- that's 15% more potential customers. Same deal with the 'no account' people.

Quote:

Originally Posted by oddica


	if you are giving Best-Practice Tips to someone building a new e-commerce T-shirt webs

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