Guest Customers and Checkout

Many stores allow shoppers to check out as guests to quickly complete purchases without the need to create a customer account or log into an existing account.

Reducing friction by offering guest checkout can lead to increased conversion rates. Not only can existing customers quickly check out as guests, some shoppers prefer to avoid creating storefront accounts altogether.

As a merchant, customer accounts provide you with opportunities to gather shopper preferences that can help with marketing campaigns, link guest orders to existing accounts, and segment customers into groups for discount and tax purposes. They also allow you to provide your customers with additional storefront features, such as order messaging, product returns, store credit, stored payment methods, wish lists, and more.

BigCommerce gives you the flexibility to configure your checkout experience to meet your business needs. Select from options such as automatically creating customer accounts after new guest orders, allowing existing customers to check out as a guest, or requiring all shoppers create and log into storefront accounts to check out.

• Your store must be using Optimized One-Page Checkout.
• To manage checkout settings, you must have the Manage Settings permission enabled on your user account.
• To edit orders, you must have the Manage Orders and Edit Orders permission enabled.
• To view and manage storefront-specific settings, you must have the Manage Channels and Edit Channels permissions enabled.

Checkout settings are accessed under Settings › Checkout.

General Settings

Enable or disable guest checkout under Customer accounts in the General settings section.

• Customers are not required to have an account to check out — Guest checkout is enabled.
• Customers are not required to have an account to check out, but automatically create one after ordering — Guest checkout is enabled. After checkout, shoppers without a customer account will have one created automatically and are sent an email inviting them to set a password for the account.
• Customers must have or create an account to check out — Guest checkout is disabled. Customers must create or sign into existing storefront accounts to check out. Payment wallets, such as PayPal and Apple Pay, are only available for signed in customers on product and cart pages.

If guest checkout is enabled, the Existing accounts section allows you to further customize the experience for shoppers with existing customer accounts.

• Allow customers with existing accounts to check out as guests — Existing customers can check out as a guest.
• Prompt existing accounts to sign in, but still allow them to check out as guests — Existing customers are prompted to sign in to their account, but can skip login and check out as a guest.
• Require existing accounts to sign in — Existing customers are required to sign in to proceed through checkout. Payment wallets, such as PayPal and Apple Pay are only available for signed in customers on product and cart pages.

If you have more than one storefront, you can enable or disable guest checkout and manage the checkout experience for customers with existing accounts separately per storefront.

Go to Channel Manager, click Edit storefront settings for the storefront, then select Checkout from the left navigation. Uncheck the box next to Use global to manage settings for the storefront or leave it checked to use the settings in Settings › Checkout.

Optimized One-Page Checkout

Passwordless login simplifies the checkout page login process by generating a one-time password as a link and sending it to the customer’s email.

Enable or disable passwordless login under Customer in the Optimized one-page checkout section by checking or unchecking the box next to Allow customers to sign in with a link sent to their email (passwordless login).

When enabled, the checkout login page will display the option for a sign-in link. Clicking Send me a sign-in link instead opens a pop-up window with a field to enter the customer's email address and buttons to Send the link or Cancel and go back to checkout.

For security, the one-time sign-in link expires after 15 minutes. A new link can be sent or the customer can close the pop-up window and provide a different email address or enter their password to log in instead.

Settings to control how guest shoppers interact with your privacy policy can be found under Guest shopper consent to privacy policy. To collect consent, you must enter the policy page URL in your store’s Security & Privacy settings.

• No consent required — Guest shoppers are not shown or prompted to accept your privacy policy.
• Require guest shoppers to consent manually with checkbox — Guest shoppers must check a box to accept your privacy policy before they can proceed past the Customer step of checkout. Recommended for GDPR compliance.
• Guest shoppers consent automatically when entering their email during checkout — Guest shoppers automatically accept your privacy policy by clicking Continue on the Customer step. A disclaimer with a link to your privacy policy will display below the email field.

If you have more than one storefront, you can manage the Guest shopper consent to privacy policy setting separately per storefront.

Similar to checkout customer settings, the privacy policy setting is accessed by editing the desired storefront in Channel Manager and selecting Checkout from the left navigation. Uncheck the box next to Use global to manage settings for the storefront or leave it checked to use the settings in Settings › Checkout.

See Multi-Storefront for details on all available storefront specific checkout settings.

Checkout Styling

If you have enabled payment wallets, such as PayPal and Apple Pay, you can change where wallet buttons display to guest shoppers during checkout in the Checkout Styling section. Wallet buttons do not display to shoppers signed in to a customer account.

When the box next to Show wallet buttons at the top of checkout is checked, wallet buttons will display above the Customer step at checkout.

Uncheck the box to display wallet buttons at the bottom of the Customer step.

All themes available in the Theme Marketplace allow you to make other minor customizations to the styling of your checkout. See Customizing Checkout to learn more.

On the View Orders page, orders made by guest shoppers are displayed with (Guest) after the customer name. If the order is placed from the same email address as an existing account, a chain icon will be displayed to the left of the Action menu. This identifies the guest shopper as a potential match with an existing customer account.

To quickly locate orders with possible matches to customer accounts, go to Orders › Search, check the box next to Guests who may be customers, then click Search.

See Viewing Orders for more information on the Advanced Search feature.

If you determine that an order from a guest shopper matches an existing customer, you can edit the order and link it to the existing storefront account. This gives the customer the ability to view the order in their order history, send order messages, reorder products, and make return requests.

To link a guest order from the Orders View page, select Edit order from the order’s Action menu. In the Customer information section, change the Order for toggle from New customer to Existing customer, then enter a name, email address, or company name to search for the existing customer.

Select the desired customer from the list of search results, click Next until you reach the Payment step, then click Save.

Can I customize the passwordless login email?

You can edit the passwordless login email template to match your store's branding, by going to Marketing › Transactional emails and editing the Sign-in Link Request template.

See Customizing Emails for more information.

Can I limit promotions to guest shoppers or signed in customers?

Yes. Stores on a Plus plan or higher can create separate customer groups for guest shoppers and customers signed into their storefront accounts. Promotion targeting rules allow you to include or exclude specific customer groups from receiving offers.