Ask users to register at the start (not the end)

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📝 Context

Topic: Website/App | Ecommerce | Customer Experience 
For: B2C
Research date: May 2021
Universities: University of Houston, University of Southern California

You’re shopping online and as soon as you open a new site, it prompts you to register with your email address before continuing to shop. Annoying? Maybe. Effective? So the science says.

Research tracking over 75,000 users of an ecommerce store shows how asking people to register early, instead of after they’ve finished shopping, leads to more registrations, higher sales and increased revenue.

P.S.: When you’re retargeting users who started shopping but haven’t finished their purchase, wait 1-3 days before reminding them to complete their checkout.

📈 Recommendation

Prompt new visitors of your online store to register early in their browsing experience (e.g. as they start browsing products) instead of waiting until they’re checking out. Make sure the registration is optional and that they can continue as guests if they prefer not to register.

People will be more likely to register and short-term sales will be the same, even if fewer users browse your site (as those are usually low-intent visitors). In the long-term overall revenues will be higher as registered customers buy more.

🎓 Findings

• People are more likely to register on a website, and spend more, when asked to register at the start of their shopping experience (e.g. when they start browsing) compared to at checkout.

• As part of a field experiment with 75,000 users on a website to build and print photo collages, customers asked to register when starting to shop: 

  • Were 58.1% more likely to register compared to those asked to register at the end

  • Were 10.9% more likely to buy something

  • Bought 16.8% more in terms of quantity 

  • Generated 13.2% higher total revenue over a year

• The effect is weaker for casual shoppers. Asking them to register at the start led to a 12.3% drop in visitors browsing, but no statistical difference in total purchases.

🧠 Why it works

• For ecommerce stores, it’s highly beneficial to register so they can retarget us and send us information on promotions (usually via email).

• However, we don’t like registering on sites because it takes mental effort and time and we’re worried about how our data will be used by the company.

• When a site asks us to register before we start looking at items, it allows us to go through our normal browsing and checkout process afterwards, once we’ve started shopping. If we leave before buying something, the brand can also contact us again to remind us to finish our purchase.

• When we’ve started the shopping process but haven’t finished (e.g. added items to our cart), we’re more likely to finish our purchase if reminded.

• If we’re not asked to register until we’ve finished shopping, our experience is initially uninterrupted. If we leave the site before checking out however, the company can’t contact us again or follow up.

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✋ Limitations

• Registration was optional in both situations tested (registering at the beginning and registering at the end), with users able to continue shopping without registering. It’s not tested, but likely that if registration is not optional, some visitors may choose to leave the site rather than register at the start.

• The analysis was on customers of a single company with a relatively long customer journey (website visitors build photo collages they can then have printed on various household items like blankets and photobooks). It may not always be generalizable to other product categories (e.g. impulse purchases like desserts or high-priced items like electronics).

• The company they studied followed up with customers who started shopping but didn’t finish their purchase. It’s likely that without this re-engagement, the effect wouldn’t result in an increase in revenue.

👀 Real-life example

Independent fashion brand Marine Layer asks customers for their email address when they’ve completed shopping and are ready to check out the items in their cart.

❌ Issue: Marine Layer only collects this information at the end of a customer’s journey, once they’re ready to complete their purchase.

✅ Solution: Marine Layer can improve their online store experience by:

• Prompting visitors to register or log in (for returning users) before they browse through various categories.

• Sending recommendations about similar items to users who registered when they started shopping but didn’t complete their purchase.

• Retargeting visitors who fill up a cart but abandon it 1-3 days after their initial visit.

• Showing models for their women’s line wearing the clothes with a contextual background (e.g. a dress at a party, a blazer in an office), instead of plain light-colored backgrounds, to increase how likely women are to buy the item.

• Including a Q&A section with frequently asked questions by customers (e.g. the material of an item, its washing instructions) to increase the positive reviews they receive.

🔍 Study type

Field experiment (A/B test on a photo products online store tracking 75,000+ users over 1 year).

📖 Research

Not Registered? Please Sign Up First: A Randomized Field Experiment on the Ex Ante Registration Request. Informations Systems Research (May 2021).

🏫 Researchers

• Ni Huang, University of Miami

• Probal Mojumder, IIM Udaipur

• Tianshu Sun, Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business

• Jinchi Lv, University of Southern California

• Joseph M. Golden, Paper2Audio

Remember: This is a scientific discovery. In the future it will probably be better understood and could even be proven wrong (that’s how science works). It may also not be generalizable to your situation. If it’s a risky change, always test it on a small scale before rolling it out widely.

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🎓 It took me, a PhD analyst, and a marketing pro 12.5 hours to accurately turn this 39-page research paper into this 3min insight. 

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