removing login info

[craftzombie]

I wanted to share something that I did to my site that seems to have helped the abandoned cart situation a little. I noticed a lot of people leaving once they got to the sign up page and I thought there has got to be a way to make them feel more comfortable with this. So this is what I have done....

Instead of making them feel like they are creating an account, why not make something else the more dominant theme on that page, which is that they are entering their billing information. All they are doing is entering their billing information and they happen to be adding a password to it.

On the login page, you have the login box on the left and the sign up box on the right. I changed the sign up box on the right to say:

"New Customers: Enter Billing Info---------------------------------
Welcome and thanks for visiting us! To continue, click on "enter billing information".
After you place an order with us, you'll always be able to track the status of your current orders and review your previous orders."

Instead of the usual button that says "sign up", my button now says "enter billing information". When you click on it, you go to the normal "create account" page, except my page has an image on the top that says "Enter Billing Information" and underneath that is says "PLEASE CONTINUE BY ENTERING YOUR BILLING INFORMATION BELOW."

Now I go on to offer a free gift with the order, they enter their info, they enter a password. Now I figured, once they got to the password field, they'd think "What the hell, I got this far. I might as well continue!" Underneath the password field, I remind them that they will not be spammed, this is solely for them to track current and previous orders, etc. An optional newsletter field follows. They hit enter and are taken to the "Success" page, where I have two buttons. One says "If you were in the process of checking out, click here to go to the shipping information page". The other button says "If you were not checking out, please click here to return to the home page."

The whole point is that you are taking the emphasis away from "signing up" and putting it more on "entering billing information". Although I myself am smart enough to see that I am "signing up" since I am entering a password, some people don't see things that way. I don't see a problem with this as long as I stand by my promise to not spam people, which I fully intend to stand by. I have had a lot of new sign ups all of a sudden and I have noticed through "user tracking" that people have been coming back, signing in, and checking on their order (even though they received the shipping email). It just seems there are many times in life where if you just word it a different way, it changes peoples perspectives. "I'm not fat, I'm just big-boned!"

Does anyone see a problem with this that I may have missed? I'm always ready for criticism, so lemme have it.....

(and a quick note: I had 6 people join before I made these changes. After the change...... 19.)