Making Repeat Clients Feel Welcome in VirtueMart: Return Login Simplified
Joomla and VirtueMart are very capable, and we make extensive use of them. However, the return login mechanism for VirtueMart is not as friendly as it could be. Today I’ll show you what we have done to make it easier for return clients to log back into their accounts in a Joomla VirtueMart store.
The problem as we have experienced it, is that clients not only do not remember what their username or password was, but that they may not even recall that they already have an account. This has been the case on a few of the websites we have built, where clients were expected to login maybe once a year and forgot they already had an account. They were so frustrated by the system, they left without completing their purchase.
What we have done is ask the client for their email address right up front, before even allowing them to complete the New Account registration form. This lets us check the database and take more control of the process, deciding if a client already exists or is really a new client. Here’s how it works:
So there you have it… A much smoother mechanism to handle clients which return to your store and have forgotten they already have an account. Here are the code changes required to make this work:
