Econsultancy editor Graham Charlton has warned that online stores are putting up unnecessary barriers to purchase. In his article 'Why HMV shouldn't make users register before checkout', Charlton criticises HMV's checkout process. Armed with a gift voucher and offer from a deals website, he went to the HMV site, but found he had to create an account before he could redeem his codes (rather than being able to redeem them when checking out). He also became entangled in an issue with an account reset, having forgotten his account’s details.
According to a recent Econsultancy/Toluna study, these kinds of actions annoy and frustrate users. Over 25 per cent of potential customers abandon purchases when being forced to register on a site before buying anything, and Charlton therefore suggests alternatives, such as optional registration before purchase, registration during checkout, or no registration at all. An earlier article on the site by Paul Rouke noted that ASOS halved its checkout abandonment by removing mentions of creating an account.