Setup

Guest Checkout

Guest checkout refers to the ability for shoppers to place an order without registration and logging in to the web store. Guest checkout might be a better option if:

• You are in a rush and you don't have time for registration.
• This is the first time you are using this web store and you don't have plans to buy anything from it ever again.

Shoppers who are placing orders without registration have almost the same shopping experience as B2C customers.

Guest checkout vs. customer checkout

1. Guests can place only sales orders, but not quotes.
2. Guests don't have shop accounts.
3. Guests cannot see their order history as they don't have an account.
4. Guests cannot use the features which require to be logged in to the web store, like wish list, reordering, shopping cart suggestions.

A shopper can add products to the basket, proceed to checkout, and place an order without registration by clicking Guest checkout on the Login page. The Guest checkout button is shown only when there is at least one product in the shopping cart.

On the first checkout step, a guest needs to enter his or her address. This can be one address, which will be used as a billing address and shipping address, or a guest can enter different billing and shipping addresses. Billing information is required.

You can control which billing/shipping information a shopper must enter when creating an order. You can allow shoppers to enter only one address which will be used both, as a billing address and shipping address, and you can also allow shoppers to enter a billing address and a different shipping address.

In Sana Admin, click: Setup > Ordering & checkout > Ordering. Use the option "Guest single address" to set up which address information a shopper must enter.

Then, a guest can select the delivery and payment methods, and pay the order.

While browsing the catalog and in the shopping cart, all prices are shown to a shopper in the currency of the template customer assigned to the web store in the ERP system. Once the billing and shipping information is entered, the customer will be created in the ERP system based on the customer template assigned to the country selected by a guest. The currency will be copied from the template customer to the newly created guest customer account. Thus, on all other steps of the checkout process, in the order details and in the order confirmation e-mail, the prices will be shown in the currency which is copied from the customer template assigned to the country.

When the order is placed, it will be stored in the ERP system. The shopper will receive the order confirmation e-mail based on the Guest Order Confirmation e-mail template. The customer is created in the ERP system based on the entered contact information and customer template assigned to the country of the shopper in the ERP system.

The shopper's billing information is also stored in the Web browser cookies for three days. This means, that if a shopper comes back to the web store within the next three days to place another order, his or her billing information will be predefined with the one entered earlier, and the same customer in ERP will be used. The shopper's billing information will be automatically removed in three days, or if a user clears the cookies from the Web browser history. The billing information will not be present also, if the shopper uses another Web browser to place an order next time.

When a shopper creates an order without registration, his or her e-mail will be checked in the ERP system. If there is a customer account of the guest type with the same e-mail address, the new guest customer will not be created in ERP, but the existing one will be used instead. This prevents creation of a large number of identical users and minimizes unnecessary data.

The shopper can also decide to become a customer by registering in the web store.

Set up guest checkout in Sana Admin

Step 1: Configure web store type and online customer registration. Guest checkout is available only when the Store type is set to Public store and New customer registration is enabled.

To configure store type, click: Setup > Basics > Store information.

To configure online customer registration, click: Setup > Customer > Registration fields.

Step 2: Click: Setup > Ordering & checkout > Ordering. Enable the option Guest checkout for B2C customers.

Step 3: Use the option "Guest single address" to set up which address information a shopper must enter. If it is enabled, a shopper must enter one address, which will be used as a billing address and shipping address. If it is disabled, a shopper can enter one address or different billing and shipping addresses.

Step 4: Click: Setup > Customer > Profile fields. Set up Guest profile fields which are shown in the web store on the Billing/shipping information step, where a shopper needs to enter his or her billing information.

Step 5: Click: Setup > Ordering & checkout > Shipping > Consumer shipping address. Set up the fields of the consumer shipping address which are shown in the web store on the Billing/shipping information step, where a shopper can enter his or her custom shipping address.

For more information, see "Profile fields".

Step 6: If necessary, you can modify the Guest Order Confirmation e-mail template, which is used to send order confirmation e-mails to shoppers who place orders without registration. To check the e-mail template, in Sana Admin, click: Setup > E-mails.

For more information, see "E-mails".

Set up guest checkout in ERP

Step 1: Check whether the countries are configured in your ERP system. The list of countries available on the Billing/shipping information checkout step is retrieved from ERP. Once the billing and shipping information is entered, the customer will be created in the ERP system based on the customer template assigned to the selected by a guest country.

Step 2: In the web store settings in your ERP system you can define the customer ID format which should be used for the guest customer accounts in ERP. By setting up the ID format for the guest customer accounts, a user in ERP can easily differentiate real customer accounts and those which are created as guests.

For more information about guest customer account IDs in ERP, see:

• Numbering in Microsoft Dynamics NAV
• Number Sequences in Microsoft Dynamics AX
• Numbering in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
• Number Sequences in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations
• Numbering in Microsoft Dynamics GP
• Number Series in SAP Business One
• Number Ranges in SAP ERP