X-Cart allows both registered and anonymous checkout for customers.

The checkout process for unregistered customers and registered but not logged-in customers starts with a page inviting them either to sign in with an existing X-Cart account or proceed with an email without creating an account.

NOTE: If the Social Login add-on is installed and configured, there can also be an option to use a Google or Facebook account for checkout.

X-Cart allows anonymous or guest checkout for your customers. It means that if a customer does not have a registered account in your store, they do not need to sign up and can proceed to checkout specifying an email only. During checkout, such customers must define their shipping and billing addresses and select delivery and payment methods. Your online store will allow them to place an order only after completing all the fields.

NOTE: Before the actual shipping and billing address info is specified, X-Cart calculates taxes and shipping costs based on the default customer address predefined in the store. For more information on the default customer address setup, see Default Customer Address.

Customers without an account can choose to create an account using the data they specified during the checkout or proceed as guests. The account creation option will look differently depending on the type of checkout enabled in the store:

The fact that a customer does not create an account during guest checkout does not mean that no account is created for them at all. Guest checkout or not, your online store records a customer account for the email used to place an order and registers it in the Users section of the Admin area. X-Cart will collect all orders placed further using this email in the same customer account. If this customer creates an account with the email used to place orders previously, the store administrator can join these two customer accounts (the one created by X-Cart and the one registered by the customer) together, keeping the info on the placed orders safe.

A store admin can invite guest customers to sign-in at checkout. To do so, enable the option "Ask anonymous users to sign in before checkout" on the Cart & Checkout page of your store Admin area (Store Setup > Cart & Checkout, General tab). In this case, anonymous users will get a prompt to sign in before placing an order.

To disable anonymous checkout altogether, use the Register on Checkout add-on features.

Registered customers logged into their accounts can complete checkout easier because most of the information required for checkout is already stored in their accounts and can be re-used. Your online store will display the personal data, like shipping and billing address, at checkout based on the address book data saved in the user account. The shipping and payment methods are also pre-selected. The selection of the shipping and payment methods is made based on previous orders of this customer.

Registered customers also have an option to re-order the items purchased earlier. After a successful checkout, the information about the order is stored in association with the customer's profile. Additionally, a customer can view any order they have placed at the store via the Orders section of their Customer Account in the storefront.

Reorder is really easy. Once the customer clicks the Re-order button, they are redirected to the cart page on the storefront that will contain the same items and in the same amount as in the selected order. They will only need to complete the checkout process and pay for the goods.

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