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.

[danielagsb]

Same here, can anyone help? thank you

[cannon2020]

Shopify, where are you??? Let me further complicate this: I am a Shopify Partner. I have 2 primary clients right now. One account sends the customer activation email correctly while the second one sends no account activation email...only sends the welcome email. I cannot see any difference in the accounts as to why one does and the second one does not.

There are so many posts and comments out there on this subject with no resolution. Shopify where are you???

G

[maxoys45]

Having the same issue here - one day I created an account on our store and received a "please activate your account" email, then my colleague does the exact same thing on the same store... gets auto activated with no email.

I believe the reason there's no solid solution from Shopify is because they don't actually know the answer. Their platform has become such a mess of code over time that they're now moving away from improving the platform, and just seeking other ways of making money (just watch the latest unite talk and you'll see how ridiculous it's becoming).

Such a pain in the backside having to use a buggy mess of a platform with little to no support from anyone technical on their multi-million dollar company.

[dv_ie]

I am wondering if some get an activation email and that some don't is because that email as already activated on another Shopify store. Shopify is an ecosystem of stores and if you register on one then you are registered for all. I believe that must be the case going on here.

[michael-helium]

@dv_ie my understanding is that any customer who registers for an account on your storefront will receive the "Customer account welcome" email, but if you want to invite existing customers to create an account you have to send an account invitation, which will prompt them to create a password. As others have pointed out, that means that a customer can register on your shop with a clearly fake email like testing123@gmail.com and receive immediate account access.

[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?

[Domdom]

Michael,

The solution that I am wanting is simply this: If a customer buys something on my website (hence, a real customer, not a fake one), this customer gets an automatic invitation alongside his order confirmation to create an account with one click (and create a password). That is literally all I want but it's not possible on Shopify which I find this mind-boggling.

If you want to know the reason why I need this, it's because all my real customers will get access to a special instructional video on my website that is not available to people who don't purchase, that's all. Without this simple account creation, they have to jump through hoops and go to register and enter all their details again and, and, and... when it could be so beautifully simple if Shopify allowed account creation on checkout or with one click after purchase.

Dominic

[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]

Hey @Domdom,

Thanks for elaborating. Two possible solutions for you:

1. (recommended) Use Mechanic to Auto-invite customers after an order: https://usemechanic.com/task/auto-invite-customers-after-an-order. I know the developers at Mechanic/Locksmith and trust them deeply... they build excellent software.
2. WOTIO app. I have not used it personally but it looks like it would also do what you need.

See this thread for more info.

[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. 

[Domdom]

Hey Michael, thanks a lot.
I think those two definitely do the job.

I guess my gripe and reason for posting on this forum is because it really
seems like this should be a core functionality of any shopping cart system
and should be a feature provided by Shopify. I'm quite amazed that the only
option is to pay a 3rd a monthly fee equal or more to the entire Shopify
platform fee just to invite your own customers to create an account. I'll
use a 3rd party app if I have to.

Thanks again.

[michael-helium]

Hey @Domdom, I'm glad that helps. 😊 

[martinhalik]

Not sure if Shopify have not changed the behaviour.

[jon909]

Hi Michael @michael-helium 

Following this thread...

I am in the similar scenario , as my biz model is Wholesale, the only missing process is step 3 & 4 & 5, verification of email , act as a filter, its a standard practice. If this process can be done at the Storefront , this customer doesn't need further verifications at checkout ( at least for my case)

Heres my flow -

Step 1 - Customer register for account at the store front

Step 2 - Notification to store - Alert !! New customer signup. (May not even need Step 2 , only customer with verified Email , the store gets an "Alert" ??  )

Step 3 - Notification to Customer , Welcome message and a LINK to verify email 

Step 4 - Customer verifies email

Step 5 - Notification to store on verification email is Good

Step 6 - Store tags customer - "Wholesale". (i do this manually)

Step 7 - Notification to prompt customer to log in  (i do this manually but if there's an app or natively available from Shopify would be great)

Step 8 - Tagged Customer logs in and get access to discounted price

Too much to ask ?  ^^ 

Peace

JY

[Kyle_W]

Hi @jon909!

I'm just stepping in for @michael-helium here.

Most of your desired flow can be accomplished using the new account approval setting available in the Customer Fields app, but some manual action would need to be taken on your part. I've provided some notes below in bold for more clarification:

"Step 1 - Customer register for account at the store front" - This is easily done by installing a Customer Fields form on the store's normal registration page, or anywhere else on the storefront (e.g. a separate page named "Wholesale Signup").

"Step 2 - Notification to store - Alert !! New customer signup. (May not even need Step 2 , only customer with verified Email , the store gets an "Alert" ??  )" - This is a built-in feature in Customer Fields; the store owner and up to 4 additional email addresses can be notified when a new customer signs up for an account.

"Step 3 - Notification to Customer , Welcome message and a LINK to verify email" - With the account approval setting enabled on a form, Customer Fields will automatically send a customizable email to the customer once they submit the form informing them that their account needs to be approved first. You or another staff member would then need to login to the app and manually approve (or deny) the customer's account after reviewing their details.

"Step 4 - Customer verifies email" - This is essentially done after you approve a pending customer in Customer Fields. The app will send a customizable 'account approved' email which contains a special link that allows the customer to verify that they have access to the email address in question. Once they click the link in the email, the customer will be asked to supply a password for their account.

"Step 5 - Notification to store on verification email is Good." - This can be done by creating a Zap in Zapier. Customer Fields is fully integrated with Zapier, and if necessary you can set up a Zap that sends an email (or perhaps a Slack message or SMS) to you and/or staff members when a customer's account status is changed from 'invited' to 'enabled'.

"Step 6 - Store tags customer - "Wholesale". (i do this manually)" - You can still do this manually, or you can let Customer Fields automatically tag the customer based on a variety of conditions.

"Step 7 - Notification to prompt customer to log in  (i do this manually but if there's an app or natively available from Shopify would be great)" -  This is essentially covered in Step 4, but if needed you can set up a Zap in Zapier to send out an additional email automatically with a link to your store's login page (/account/login). 

"Step 8 - Tagged Customer logs in and get access to discounted price" - Granting access to discounted pricing based on tags (or any other conditions for that matter) is not a feature in Customer Fields, but there are several other apps out there that offer this type of functionality -- many of which happen to work great in conjunction with Customer Fields.

Hopefully this helps, JY! 

[traincapper]

Thanks @Kyle_W - This is a step in the right direction, but still does not solve the problem.  This is basic functionality in other systems.  How would a store owner know that an email address is legitimate vs. spam vs. a typo?  The only way to accomplish this is via end user verification proving they have access to the email address they are signing up with.

[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