Customer Account Verification

[Onyx8789]

Ok it looks like this question has been asked 1000 times. I have yet to find a formal answer to it and by the looks of the dates its been an issue for 5 years????? DOES ANYONE HAVE A SOLUTION TO CUSTOMER ACCOUNT ACTIVATION?

1. New customer enters details (Name, Email, Password)

2. Page changes to "An activation email has been sent!" or something to that degree

3. Customer activates by clicking email link sent

4. Finally customer is redirected to login page and is required to login for access to the store

This is the absolute most basic and logical customer account creation there could be.... I'm not sure why it's still an issue after 5 years and has me considering Shopify to be a platform that might not be suitable for even the most basic of functionality for an eCommerce store.

[Kyle_W]

Hey @traincapper

Thanks for the feedback! At Helium we're always on the lookout for ways to improve our apps and help solve problems for merchants using Shopify. I realize our app's new account approval feature does not solve the original problem at hand, but like you mentioned it sure is a step in the right direction. We've found that many merchants want to manually approve/deny customers at will -- prior to the customer record being saved into Shopify. 

I want to clarify that both Customer Fields and Shopify have some built-in logic which is designed to assist with email validation. Of course there is some regular validation on the input field to ensure that the format of the email address is valid (it must contain the '@' symbol, a valid domain/TLD, no unordinary special characters, etc). In addition to the regular field validation, Shopify performs a quick MX lookup on the user's specified domain to ensure that the domain is able to accept email, but this does not ensure that the actual email address itself is valid.

Within our Customer Fields app you can also add an extra field to the store's registration form to force the customer to confirm their email address prior to submission (similar to a password confirmation field). This may help to prevent spammers and help with typos, but again this is still not a true verification process (where the end user is confirming they have access to the email address via an automated email that contains a special token/code/link).

One option we're considering is a new a feature or setting in Customer Fields that would trigger Shopify's 'Customer account invite' email to be sent automatically once a user submits a certain form. This would effectively work for email verification, since the user's account in Shopify would not be considered active until the user clicks the link in the invite email and sets a password for their account. With this approach a customer record would be created in Shopify, but the status (or 'state') for these customers would be invited (as opposed to enabled for customers with active accounts).

We'll be sure to update this thread with any progress to report, and if anyone has any questions about our Customer Fields app, please don't hesitate to reach out!

[michael-helium]

UPDATE!

We have just released an account verification feature in the Customer Fields app!

If you're not familiar with Customer Fields, the app offers a suite of tools to customize your Shopify registration form(s). You can add additional fields, set up automatic customer tags, and now... require email verification before a customer is able to access their account.

[horselditty]

Hey there,

If anybody is interested in a seamless way of activating user accounts, we have just developed an app that can do this on the order confirmation page.  So basically, post-purchase.  
It's called Smart Account Activate and there's a free plan if you want to try it out.  https://apps.shopify.com/smart-account-activate

[Domdom]

Finally! You made an app that does what Shopify should be offering to its
customers as part of the basic package. Congrats. I'll try it out for sure.

[michael-helium]

To the OP @Onyx8789's main question... I am curious to hear the main reason for wanting to verify customer email addresses.

For most Shopify merchants, there is no harm whatsoever in these fake accounts gaining account access. The challenge is primarily for B2B/wholesale sites that offer exclusive discounts or other benefits to logged in customers... I'm assuming most of you reading this thread are experiencing this challenge?

[Onyx8789]

That's exactly the reason, we wanted to adjust pricing based on who logged
in such as regular customers vs wholesale customers. Without email
verification for access to the store's pricing, a wholesale customer could
login without being verified and see the retail pricing. This could result
in a conversion loss if our wholesale customers are seeing the retail
price. I've used the locksmith app and a webhook app to complete this
manually since shopify doesn't have this in it's base functionality.

[dv_ie]

Follow the instructions on this thread to ask for you account to be enrolled in the beta they are working on. I did this and it seems to be working pretty well after they activated it on our account.

https://community.shopify.com/c/Shopify-Discussion/Customer-account-email-verification/m-p/824746/hi...

[michael-helium]

Thanks @Onyx8789,

Locksmith is a great app and a solution we have recommended to many of our clients.

However, seeing as this is still a massive pain point for Shopify merchants in 2020, we are building an account approval feature into the Customer Fields app. Account approval would work like this:

1. Customize your wholesale registration form to request the specific information needed to verify new customers (the app supports file uploads, date fields, etc.)
2. A new customer applies for an account on your storefront and is added to your list of "pending customers"
3. Review your pending customers and choose to approve/deny each prospective customer
4. Approved customers will be invited to create an account
5. Send an email to customers who were denied access... or just quietly deny and ignore the spammers.

Would this be an improvement over your current solution & workflow? It seems this would solve your problem in 1 app instead of 2, so maybe there are cost savings to you as well? We're still working on developing these features so I'd love to hear your feedback. 

[jsen42]

@Sunny are you still with us? It's been 3 years since the initial request and it still seems not to be a default functionality. One should not need another app for this basic functionality: When you create an account, you should activate it via email before logging in/have the account opened. It shouldn't be possible to create an account with the email adress of another person.

The steps should be:

1. Create customer account
2. Send email "Please activate your account. If this wasn't you, ignore this email."
3. If the user clicks on the link, activate the account and tell the customer: "Thanks, your account is now active."
4. (Optionally: send a confirmation email "Thanks for activating your account")

I've found the customer_account_activate email notification template and a matching entry in the API docs: https://shopify.dev/api/examples/customer-accounts#activate-a-customer

So why isn't there a simple option in the shopify backend to activate this opt-in functionality?

[michael-helium]

@jsen42 you are correct that email verification is still not offered natively by Shopify.

To be clear on one point, the steps you laid out are followed (more or less) when there is an existing customer profile, usually meaning the email address has subscribed to marketing or made a purchase as a guest.

Email verification is offered on Customer Field's Lite plan, and while I understand the frustration

of wishing this was offered natively by Shopify, I do hope you can find $12 of value per month using our app which we've spent 6+ years developing.

[Awad3]

This is so frustrating that that shopify doesn't have this set up yet......Absolutely ridiculous.....I tried Helium app, not of any use either - Looks like its gonna remain same ---SO DISAPPOINTED OF SHOPIFY!

[michael-helium]

@Awad3 I agree it's frustrating. Why exactly is the Helium app not helpful?
If you set your form's Account Options to "require email verification" (see screenshot) the form will do exactly what the OP asked for:

1. New customer enters details (Name, Email, Password)

2. Page changes to "An activation email has been sent!" or something to that degree

3. Customer activates by clicking email link sent

4. Finally customer is redirected to login page and is required to login for access to the store

What about that doesn't work for you?