Customer Account Settings
Here you decide how customers can register and sign in to your shop — for example, whether registration is mandatory, whether guest orders are allowed, and how secure passwords need to be. These settings apply to the whole shop.
/customer-accountsWhat can I do here?
- Decide whether customers must register, may register voluntarily, or whether customer accounts are disabled entirely
- Allow or forbid guest orders (ordering without an account)
- Require email verification for new customer accounts
- Require an admin to approve new customer accounts before they become active
- Set the minimum password length for customer accounts
Step by step
- Choose a registration mode: In the "Registration" section, choose between "Optional", "Required", and "Disabled" (see "Values & Status" below).
- Configure guest checkout: Turn the "Allow guest checkout" toggle on or off, depending on whether customers may order without their own account.
- Set up security: Enable "Email verification" and/or "Account approval" in the "Verification & Security" section if needed, and set the minimum password length with the slider.
- Save: Click "Save" in the top right to apply all changes.
Fields explained
| Field | Meaning | Notes/Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Registration mode | Controls whether account registration is optional, required, or not possible at all | See "Values & Status" below |
| Allow guest checkout | Customers can order without their own account | Ignored if the registration mode is "Required" |
| Email verification | Customers must confirm their email address before the account can be fully used | Increases security but can slow down registration |
| Account approval | An admin must approve a newly created customer account first | An extra manual step, e.g. for closed B2B shops |
| Minimum password length | Smallest allowed number of characters for customer passwords (6–128) | Applies to all future password assignments |
Values & Status
Registration mode
| Value | Plain-language meaning | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| Optional (default) | Customers can register; guest orders are possible | Gives customers the most flexibility |
| Required | Customers must register before purchasing | Guest checkout is effectively excluded even if the toggle is on |
| Disabled | There are no customer accounts, only guest orders | Registration is not possible in the shop |
Data export and account erasure by the customer
In their account under Settings › My data, your customers can trigger two things themselves. You do not have to enable anything, and you are not asked for consent - both are rights the customer may exercise without your involvement.
| Action | What the customer receives | What happens to the data |
|---|---|---|
| Data export (Art. 20 GDPR) | A JSON file with profile and saved addresses | Nothing is changed; it is a pure read |
| Account erasure (Art. 17 GDPR) | A confirmation listing what is retained | See the three treatments below |
The erasure requires an explicit confirmation in the shop - an accidental click erases no account. Afterwards the customer is signed out and can no longer sign in with that email address.
What actually happens is deliberately split three ways, because a single treatment cannot satisfy the right to erasure and the retention duty at the same time:
| Treatment | Applies to | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Deleted outright | Addresses, consent history, marketing confirmations, internal notes, attributes | These records describe the person and nothing else, and carry no retention duty |
| Irreversibly anonymized | The customer profile itself, including the search key derived from the email address | Orders point at it; a deleted reference would make the order history unusable |
| Retained, but without the personal trace | The audit trail | It has to stay traceable; the erased person's IP address, browser identifier and search parameters are removed |
Two points that come up regularly in conversations with customers:
- Orders are retained, with the invoice address. That is not negligence but section 147 AO and section 257 HGB: commercial letters and accounting documents must be kept for ten years and may not be altered during that time. Your shop names this period to the customer explicitly after the erasure.
- After anonymization the customer is no longer searchable. Not even by their former email address in the customer list. If you need to attribute an order to that customer, the order itself is the only remaining route.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if I choose "Required" but leave "Allow guest checkout" enabled?
The registration mode takes precedence: with "Required", customers must register in every case, regardless of the guest-checkout toggle's state.
What is account approval useful for?
If you run a closed B2B shop where only approved business customers may order, account approval prevents anyone from creating a usable account on their own.
Does the minimum password length also apply retroactively to existing customers?
The setting affects newly assigned passwords. Whether existing, shorter passwords are forced to be updated on the next change is not evident from the code.
Why is a customer signing in with Google/Apple/Microsoft/GitHub sometimes asked to log in with a password instead?
For security reasons: when a customer signs in through a social provider and an account with the same email address already exists, SELLERLOGIC Commerce Services only links the two automatically if the provider confirmed that the email address belongs to the person signing in (verified). If the address is not verified at the provider, the automatic link is refused and the customer is asked to log in with their password and then link the social provider themselves from their account settings. This prevents anyone from taking over someone else's account by adding an unverified foreign email address to their own provider account. A brand-new account (with an email address not already on file) is still created as usual.