Customer registration

[GinKen]

Greetings to this forum. Not sure where this thread should go, so here it is.
We are a small volume business, and would like to keep things friendly, by making it optional for customers to become members through registration, and not asking for information that some people find personal, such as age (birthdate). If there is a reason for ZenCart's insistence on registration and birthdate info, such as security, please let me know. I have shopped online quite a bit over the years, and at most sites am able to purchase without doing all this. To me, it seems good business to enable the customer to purchase with as few steps as necessary. At the moment, I would like to make registration optional or, if that isn't possible, eliminate it, and especially the birthdate requirement. How can I do this? I'm OK with editing php scripts.
Thanks
GinKen

[Kim]

Registration is not required until the customer goes to the checkout and much of the information is optional and can be turned off in the Admin> Configuration> Customer Details

[GinKen]

Thank you,
This is certainly a step in the direction I want to go in.
I still would like to give the customer the option of whether or not to register, or disable registration. I wonder if anyone has successfully edited scripts to do this.

[Mibble]

if you are selling items, why would you want to not have the customer register? you need to keep track of the order somehow. there is a purchase without account option . . .

[gjh42]

Integrated Checkout Without Account - there is a link in this wiki article to the offsite download source. There is a support thread titled "My Checkout Without Account Mod".

[GinKen]

I want to thank both of you, Mibble and gjh42. I am still learning about Zen Cart. I like what I've seen very much, but it's just this registration thing bugging me, and was unaware if there is a purchase without account option. Mibble, I'm fine with customers registering, it's great for me, but while some customers, I find, don't mind, there are others who just don't like it. Some like to purchase with as few steps as possible, and others who just don't like the idea of registering may end up going somewhere else where they don't have to register. So, I just want options to cater to the different customer psychologies. The mod gjh42 introduced apparently gives the options "They can sign in to their existing account, they can create a new account, or they can proceed through checkout without an account. " This is just what I want, and will explore this mod. Has anyone got it working? If so, I'd find it encouraging to know. Thanks again.
GinKen

[Merlinpa1969]

lol,

I think its funny, folks dont want to give you all the information to create an account but its all just the same information that they type in for their shipping address and CC verification.....

[GinKen]

gjh42,
Finally got around to installing your mod, but on testing, when clicking on the "continue" button, I get a 404 "page not found" error. The URL is index.php?main_page=FILENAME_NO_ACCOUNT
Would you know what is going on? I installed the files just for one template I will be using, except for the five stock files which I overwrote.
Really glad someone is putting in the effort to make this mod.
Thanks

[Merlinpa1969]

means you missed a step,

you either missed a file to upload or a note to add a line to includes/filenames.php

[GinKen]

Yes, thanks. That helped.