Simple registration now available

Store owners can now choose to allow visitors to their site to create an account with only their name, email address and password.

Why use simple registration?

The first thing to remember is that simple registration is not the best approach in every case. Ensuring you have full details for registered customers may be key to your business. The bulk of your marketing may be offline, for example, so you need a mailing address. This is why we have implemented this as a simple on/off setting that you can just adjust for your individual store(s).

Having said that...

• Generally speaking, people are only willing to provide enough information to complete their particular process or transaction. Asking for additional information makes people suspicious. ("Why would they need a postcode from me? I only want to save a wishlist...") Unless you can offer something compelling in return for all this information, fewer people will bother to complete the form.
• If you do ask for apparently extraneous information, most of the data will be junk.
• Bear in mind that many of the visitors will be on your site for the first time. It is much better to ask for a little information at the start, and ask for more information later on after you have built a relationship with the customer.

Login and registration pages have been merged into a single page

Regardless of whether your store allows simple registration or not, login and registration has been merged into a single two-column page. This page takes up the full width of the page, which means that any left/right navigation on your store is removed on this page. This is by design. Not only does it give the forms plenty of space from a layout point of view, but the act of registering/logging-in is highly task-focused. As a store owner, you just want them to finish filling out the form without being distracted by anything else or navigating away from the page.

• View an example of login/registration page when using simple registration
• View an example of login/registration page when not using simple registration

When can I use this?

This update is available immediately for all stores on the Magnolia network, and is of course free of charge.

The default setting for all stores remains as "full registration", where customers have to supply a mailing address to create an account. To update your store to use simple registration, adjust the "Allow simple registration" setting under Store Settings -> Accounts.