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Customer Contact Method

Customer contact method is the first section on the Checkout settings page, and it holds three decisions rather than one. A shopper identifies themselves with either a phone number or an email. They are then offered a way to track the order, or not, and made to sign in, or not. Whatever you settle on becomes the only handle you have on that buyer afterwards, which is the part worth thinking about.

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Customer contact method is the first section on the Checkout settings page. It holds three decisions, and none of them is difficult once you know what each one costs you. They are what a shopper must type to identify themselves, whether they are offered a way to track the order afterwards, and whether they are allowed to buy without an account at all.

What you settle here is the address or phone number the order confirmation goes to. It is also, in most cases, the only way you have of reaching that buyer again.

Before you begin

  • If you plan to require a sign-in, customer accounts are set up. Requiring an account turns away anyone who does not have one, so the account experience has to exist first. It is in Settings, under Customer accounts.
  • Open Settings > Checkout. This is the first section on the page.

What the section holds

The contact method is a pair of radio buttons (1). Below them sit two checkboxes (2), each with its own consequence.

The Customer contact method section, showing the two radio buttons for the contact method (1) and the two checkout options below them (2) (opens full size)

Nothing here saves on its own. Changing any of the three raises a You have unsaved changes bar at the top of the page, and the change reaches your live checkout when you click Save in that bar.

Decision one: what a shopper types to identify themselves

Phone number or email lets the shopper use whichever they have to hand. It is the lower-friction choice, and on a phone it is often the faster one. The cost is that you do not control which you get. A buyer who enters a phone number leaves you no email address, and anything that runs on email has nothing to send to: the order confirmation, the shipping update, an abandoned checkout reminder, and any marketing they later agree to.

Email requires an email address from everyone. It asks slightly more of the shopper, and in exchange every order you take arrives with an address you can write to. If your order notifications and follow-up go out by email, this is the setting that guarantees they can be delivered.

The question to ask is not which is friendlier but which one you can work with afterwards. A store that ships physical goods and emails tracking numbers is better served by Email, even at the cost of a few seconds at checkout. A store that confirms by phone, or sells in a market where email is uncommon, is better served by the looser setting.

Whichever you require, what the shopper types lands under Contact information on their customer record. That entry is what every later message to that buyer is sent to, which is why the choice outlives the order it was made on.

Show a link for customers to track their order adds a way for the shopper to follow the order after they have bought, rather than writing to you to ask where it is.

Turning it on costs you nothing at checkout. It does not add a field or a step; it changes what a buyer is given after paying. Turning it off does not make the information private, it only makes the buyer ask you for it, which is the single most common message most stores receive.

Decision three: whether an account is required

Require customers to sign in to their account before checkout removes guest checkout. Every buyer signs in first, so every order is attached to an existing customer record rather than to a one-off guest.

This is the setting on the page with the largest downside. A first-time buyer who is asked to create an account before they can pay is being asked to do unpaid work at the exact moment they had decided to buy, and a share of them will not. Leave it clear unless accounts are genuinely part of how you sell, such as a wholesale store, a members-only catalog, or a store where every buyer is already registered with you.

Verify the result

  • The contact method you chose shows a filled radio and the other is clear.
  • Each checkbox reflects the choice you made.
  • The unsaved-changes bar has gone, and the settings are still there when you reopen the page.

Best practices

  • Phone number or email suits most stores. It lets a shopper use whichever identifier they have.
  • Choose Email if you follow up by email, so no order arrives without an address you can write to.
  • Keep guest checkout on unless accounts are essential to how you sell.
  • Leave the order-tracking link on. It answers the most common question you would otherwise be asked.

Common mistakes

  • Requiring sign-in for every shopper, which turns away first-time buyers who do not want an account.
  • Choosing Email when most of your customers reach you by phone, so follow-up lands somewhere they never read.
  • Changing the contact method after launch without checking that order notifications still reach customers.

Next steps

Still stuck?

More in Checkout

  • Marketing Consent at Checkout

    Marketing consent is not something you set for a customer. It is something a shopper grants, channel by channel, so agreeing to email is not agreeing to texts. What counts as consent and what does not, where each permission lands on the customer record, and what happens when someone changes their mind are all taken here.

  • The Rules of Checkout Settings

    Every other article in this category sets one thing. This one is what holds true across all of them: saving publishes straight to your live checkout, the two dialogs do not save themselves, and a required field will block an order outright. Some controls cannot be changed at all, and the page settles what the form asks rather than any condition on an individual order.

  • Add-to-cart Limit

    The Add-to-cart limit caps how many of one product a single shopper can put in their cart. It quietly does a second job as well, since a cap also stops anyone using the cart to work out how much stock you are holding. Picking the number is the whole task: too low and you turn away a genuine bulk buyer, too high and it stops nothing.

  • Advanced Preferences

    Advanced preferences is the fifth card on the Checkout settings page and behaves unlike the four above it. Those are settings laid out in front of you; this one is two rows, each opening a dialog of its own. Between them these pages explain what the two rows govern, why they sit behind dialogs, and how a change in one actually reaches your live checkout.

All 14 articles in Checkout

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