How can I streamline the customer account activation process?

[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.

[Sunny]

Hi, @Onyx8789!

Sunny here from the Shopify Guru team and I would be happy to look into this for you.

From the steps you shared for customers looking to create customer accounts, that looks about right. Can you elaborate a little further on what exactly the issue is or what the question you are looking to get answered is? Which part of the customer account verification are you or your customers having trouble with? I would be happy to troubleshoot and work together to resolve this issue.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Cheers,

Sunny | Shopify Guru

[Onyx8789]

The trouble lies with actually activating an account. When someone goes to our store, they must create an account to view prices. They Go through the account creation process and enter name, email, password etc. Instead of being required to verify with an email activation link sent by the store before gaining access, they are instead instantly verified and the email activation never happens. They would just get an email saying welcome and that's it. I am using the Login to view price app to lock the store until an account is made. Please note that this app has nothing to do with the activation problem not working as it didn't work from the beginning 

[Onyx8789]

@Sunny ,

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Sunny]

Hello again, @Onyx8789 and thanks so much for your patience!

I appreciate you taking the time to clarify that for me, that makes a lot of sense. For context, the original purpose of customer accounts is for customers to easily keep track of their order history, current order status and to allow for quick checkouts when shopping at the same store in the future. It was not built with a rigid "accept" or "deny" feature but more for the average shopper looking to keep track of their personal information. With that being said, I can understand why you're looking for something like this and can agree that our customer accounts are lacking customization to fit every type of business need.

It seems like you are looking to use the customer account for a different purpose than it was initially intended and built for, and that you are looking for a similar set up to what a combined online wholesale/retail shop may have, where new customers see retail prices but approved customers with a special login key get access to the wholesale area of the site with discounted pricing. Am I understanding that correctly? Since this is not a native feature of the platform, I would suggest to use an app called Locksmith, if you're not already, that can help you achieve what you're looking for since it's definitely more advanced than our basic customer account functionality. If you need a hand setting that up, I would be happy to help!

I would also recommend having a look at this workaround that another forum member shared as a solution if you are comfortable with code: https://community.shopify.com/c/Shopify-Discussion/HELP-How-to-approve-customer-accounts/m-p/322639

Although this may not have been the answer you're looking for, I would be happy to pass along the feedback to our Products team so they are aware of what our merchants would like from our customer accounts in hopes that it will be implemented it in the future! Let me know if you have any questions at all.

Cheers,

Sunny | Shopify Guru

[Domdom]

@Sunny 

I allow customers to shop as a guest because that is necessary for good conversions. However, I need them to have an easy way to complete their account activation after a purchase as I am offering paying customers free access to something on the site and they need their account active for locksmith to grant them access.

So I tried pasting the code from the customer Activation Email into the order confirmation email so that when the customers receive their order confirmation, they immediately go ahead and activate their account. This does not work, the link seems to get deactivated when trying this method. I also tried to create a trigger via shopify flow but there is also no way of sending the account activation through that native shopify app either.

Therefore it appears the only way to do this is via paid 3rd party apps. My view is that allowing customers to easily finish creating their account after making a purchase should be a basic functionality that Shopify offers.  How is this not easy? Why is the only solution offered by shopify to manually send the activations or pay for a 3rd party app to send the invites?

Am I missing something?

Thanks,

[Onyx8789]

Just to chime in since I to had issues with this as well. The only solution I found after all my searching was indeed to pay for a 3rd party app. It was the only way to create triggers, conditions etc. for a customer to be allowed access to certain things effectively emulating what should already be a simple implementation in the Shopify platform itself. Unfortunately paying is the only way to  get this done if you're not a coding expert which I surely was not. 

[Globacontrol]

Hi Onyx8789,

I have the same problem as you.

What application did you install? And what is your opinion?

Thank you very much and best regards, Bruno

[cramipeg]

How did you fix this issue? 

[Onyx8789]

I used locksmith to hide prices until a customer was logged in. I also hid other parts of the stores using locksmith so the only way to see that part of the store or prices would be if I added the user's email to the locksmith condition. I also set up an email notification every time a new user was created so I could manually "verify" them for access. This wouldn't be useful in high volume stores.

[Domdom]

Hi @Sunny 

Do you think you could give us a brief explanation for Shopify's reasoning behind blocking us from having customers make an account easily?

A lot of us are really perplexed as to why Shopify is deliberately making this an impossible task. Pasting the registration link into an automatically generated email such as a purchase receipt DEACTIVATES THE LINK so this is a deliberate move from Shopify and it makes our task of having customers create an account difficult. 

Why not allow us to nudge our customers after a purchase and say "Hey, finish setting up your account".. All they would need to do is enter their passwords and done. This can be done by manually sending them that email from your dashboard so why not allow us to automate it?

Thanks.

[flofa]

---

@Domdom wrote:

Hi @Sunny 

Do you think you could give us a brief explanation for Shopify's reasoning behind blocking us from having customers make an account easily?

A lot of us are really perplexed as to why Shopify is deliberately making this an impossible task. Pasting the registration link into an automatically generated email such as a purchase receipt DEACTIVATES THE LINK so this is a deliberate move from Shopify and it makes our task of having customers create an account difficult. 

Why not allow us to nudge our customers after a purchase and say "Hey, finish setting up your account".. All they would need to do is enter their passwords and done. This can be done by manually sending them that email from your dashboard so why not allow us to automate it?

Thanks.

---

https://community.shopify.com/c/Shopify-Discussion/HELP-How-to-approve-customer-accounts/m-p/322639

Does this work?

[Domdom]

@flofa That suggestion is an excellent alternative to using Locksmith. It worked like a charm for me.

My main issue remains unsolved, though: How can a customer shop on my website, then when they are finished checking out, press a button that says "activate my account" and all they need to do is create a password, and now they have made an account using all their credentials used when shopping. This is the step I need automated so that my customers don't have to try and figure out how to access the content later on.

[cnrtncy]

He does not seem like he is looking to use the customer account for a different purpose. We just want one customer should not be able to enter the account page without verification or create 10.000 fake account on our store. If account is not verified we should be able to delete account.

So which purpose Shopify uses email verification?

[michael-helium]

@cnrtncy Shopify only verifies a customer's email address if the customer has existing orders. If you want to enforce email verification prior to customer registration then try the Customer Fields app.
(Shopify still does not support this functionality.)

[umeshk01]

How can I restrict on customer email registration such that only a particular domain is allowed to register

[michael-helium]

Hi @umeshk01 - yes, this functionality is supported in the Helium Customer Fields app.

Here's a video that shows how to do this in the app.

[umeshk01]

Dear Sir,

Thank you for the reply, but it is a paid app and I am looking a solution if we can do this by changing some code in register.liquid and login.liquid.

In this column,

<div class="field">
<input
type="email"
name="customer[email]"
id="CustomerEmail"
autocomplete="email"
autocorrect="off"
autocapitalize="off"
{% if form.errors contains 'form' %}
aria-invalid="true"
{% endif %}
placeholder="{{ 'customer.login_page.email' | t }}"
>
<label for="CustomerEmail">
{{ 'customer.login_page.email' | t }}
</label>
</div>

Please see.

Thank you

[Pedro_Peixoto]

Agree! Don't understand why the basics are still left unchecked.

Paid third party solutions are no argument for shopify "not implement" the security basics of a proper e-commerce site.

- Creation of an user account should have two-step validation with a code sent by email, or code sent to cell-phone. The staff accounts already have it, optionally, I don't understand why customers can't have it too. It would prevent BOTs from creating accounts, and the increase of paid services that the site may be paying to thrid party (due to subscribers or/and existing accounts).

- Also, the customer him-self should have the option of two-step authentication in log in. This will demonstrate the commitment of Shopify in keeping the accounts secured.

Security, and quality of services, specially the basics, are lacking. I Recommend that you prioritize this type of functionalities.

[Onyx8789]

I couldn't agree more. The whole reason we wanted it for our store was to
ensure that those who created an account did so with valid credentials.
With the current design you can make your email 123@abc.com and it does not
validate if that email even exists. Your customer doesn't get the INDUSTRY
STANDARD style email where you receive a request to validate your email. I
had to add "email my webhooks" to even notify me that someone created an
account.

[Alex_Russell]

Seriously Sunny must be a star employee at Shopify, doing exactly what they do best: Responding to issues with their software by telling people they need to pay for a 3rd party app to use a function that is industry standard and should be in their product.

Never ceases to amaze me, the lack of care Shopify have for their clients. Just amazing.

[geokandas]

Hello,

Has Shopify done anything about this issue? We are talking about an online store standard feature that is missing!

[Onyx8789]

@geokandas  Nope. I had to use a web hook plugin to notify me that someone created an account and then purchase locksmith to lock the entire store except for people who I've entered emails for. Basically I have to provide access to every customer manually, otherwise there is no solution. 

[geokandas]

So there is no simple solution to this! Thanks to@Shopify........ pfffffff

[MaddyPaw]

My customers are not receiving verification email during the creation of the account.

Can someone please help? It will be appreciated.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[RMedia]

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.

[NatalieG1]

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]

@NatalieG1 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?