I have just had a local customer collect some dolls/ bears and she asked how she should pay, I said it was up to her and she could order them through my shop and pay online, she said she had tried to do that and had messages or pop ups asking her to create an account first and she couldn’t get any further unless she did. Has anyone had this before ? She doesn’t like doing anything online and ended up paying cash as it was easier for her (to be honest it saved her £40 as I took the fees off) and doesn’t make any difference to me other than they don’t show as sales in my shop, but, has anyone else had thi ? do they have to sign up for an account to be able to purchase as I thought it could be done without being signed in. She said she had tried a while ago and it put her off buying so I just wondered whether others might be put off as well.
I’ve just tried it by logging out and adding something to my basket and going to check out. It didn’t ask me to create an account but just continue as a guest so I’m not sure why this happened to her. I must admit I didn’t go right to the end as I didn’t want to buy my own card but at every page it said continue as guest.
Thank you Hilary, I thought that’s how it should work, no idea then, unless there was a blip at the time or she’s made a mistake somehow and clicked on something else, perhaps on one of the Folksy links on the page. I will ask her to try again next time and if she has any issues to ring me, she only lives in the next village. Thanks for testing it..why didn’t I think of that 
Was it folksy asking her to create an account or the payment provider? I know that PayPal has previously asked people to create accounts if they have used the guest check out option several times.
Could it have been the box that pops up suggesting you subscribe to the folksy email?
HI @SashaGarrett She said she had gone to my shop and tried to buy something and said in order to do so she would have to make an account and she didn’t want to do that. Something about having to sign up but she said she couldn’t do it without. I said I thought it was strange and as far as I was aware you don’t need an account, I told her I would look into it for next time. She did purchase via my Folksy shop last year but I was there so I showed her what to do, reserved the items for her then she paid the next day or so.
Ah, I wonder if that’s what she’s seen Jayne @beyondthefielddesigns beyondthefielddesigns and misunderstood. She doesn’t like online shopping and isn’t too confident with it, next time I see her I will ask her to show me, but that does make sense.
Thank you
If she tried to use the ‘contact’ button she’d have been asked to sign up, but there’s no need to register when simply buying.
As others have suggested, maybe it was confusion with the mailing list pop up on the homepage, or the PayPal pop up when paying? No part of the checkout process should make anyone sign up to Folksy.
Hi Kim @kimfolksy she popped by this morning as she wanted another doll and I asked her, by the sounds of things it might have been the contact button as you suggested as she said she wanted to ask me to reserve something, Apparently she hadn’t got to checkout stage afterall. She has a business card so has other options to contact me and messaged me on what’s app this morning, no idea how she found that one.
Hi Kim @kimfolksy I was thinking about the contact seller button, wouldn’t it be better if people could use that without having to set up an account. My customer walked away from it because she doesn’t like creating accounts then getting bombarded with emails from companies. Luckily she’s local and has my telephone number but it did make me wonder if there might be others that might not bother if there’s no way of sending a quick message or question without having to set it up first. If I didn’t already know her I would have just lost a £400 sale.
That would make sense Debby, as prospective customers may well want to ask something about an item before deciding whether to buy or not. And if they are only at that initial enquiry stage then they are less likely to want to sign up to anything, and more likely to be put off by a request to do so.
Yes absolutely Liz, my customer would have 100% walked away. I never knew they had to sign up for an account to be able to contact us, I will be honest (if that is the case and I havn’t misunderstood) I I would also have walked away and looked somewhere else. I can’t understand why an account would be needed to contact a seller yet a sale can be done as a guest checkout, have I understood this correctly @kimfolksy
People contacting you are required to sign up to protect sellers from spammers and scammers. If we didn’t have this extra step, it would be a lot harder to stop scam messages being sent.
Thank you, Kim. I hadnt thought of that side of things. But so sad that a genuine enquirer wanting to ask a simple question can’t do so because of the existence of spammers and scammers.
And difficult for sellers, often I see shops inviting prospective to buyers to ask if they want something specific made or some specific tweak, or a particular combination of items in a bulk purchase. Seems that can’t happen if they are buying as a guest, or if they haven’t reached a decision as to whether to buy or not depending on the answer.
I don’t think people need to have an account to purchase. Some of the drawbacks are that they cannot leave you reviews or like items if they don’t have an account. But I get why people might not want an account. Isn’t there a way they can opt out of receiving lot of emails?
No I know they don’t need an account to purchase it was regarding leaving a message using the contact seller button, they can only do that if they sign up for an account. My customer wouldn’t probably know how to opt out even if she could and because she doesn’t like doing things online she would rather just not bother,
thank you @kimfolksy although i can understand the reason why regarding potential scammers I do also think we could lose customers if there is no quick way to contact us, I didn’t realise an account was needed, as Liz mentioned it may put potential customers off when they are wondering whether to buy or not or want to ask a question about an item before deciding. It’s a tricky one but I still think there needs to be a way to contact sellers without having to set an account up first.