Customer registration: what to ask for, what not to and how to handle businesses

The registration form is a place where stores get it wrong in both directions. Some ask for everything “just in case”: date of birth, gender, how you heard about us, landline. Others ask for the bare minimum and then discover, when issuing the invoice, that the customer was a business and they do not have its NIF. Both cost money.

This article is about deciding what to ask for at registration, what to leave for later and how to handle business customers without spoiling the purchase for consumers.

The principle: ask for what you will use

The General Data Protection Regulation sets out the principle of data minimisation: the data you collect must be adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary for the purpose. Translated to a store: if you do not know what you will use a piece of data for, do not ask for it. And if you ask for it for a specific reason, say so.

This is not only a legal issue. Every required field is one more reason for someone to abandon the form. And every piece of data you keep is data you have to protect, export if the customer asks and delete when the time comes.

What is usually unnecessary

• A required date of birth, unless you sell age-restricted products or genuinely use it for something (a birthday gift, for example). If that is the reason, make it optional.
• Title or gender: it hardly ever adds anything.
• Repeating the password and email: a button to show the password is more useful these days.
• A required “How did you hear about us?”: if you want it, make it optional and ask after the purchase.
• Pre-ticked marketing boxes: consent to marketing has to be an action by the customer, not a default value.

The two-form problem

In PrestaShop, creating the account and creating the address are, out of the box, two separate steps. The customer fills in the registration form, thinks they have finished, and when they go to buy they find another form with the address, phone number and NIF. That is where registrations are lost: the feeling that “this never ends” is one of the biggest causes of abandonment.

You have two sensible options:

1. Minimal registration and the address at checkout. The customer only enters name, email and password when registering, and types the address when they buy. This suits consumer stores where many people buy as guests.
2. Registration with the address included. The customer enters everything at once and their first address is created. This suits B2B stores or customers who register to buy on a recurring basis.

What does not work is a mix: asking for half at registration and the other half later, with repeated data.

Business customers: the data you do need

If you sell to businesses and self-employed people, there are details you need to invoice correctly:

• Registered company name, which does not always match the trading name or the name of the person buying.
• NIF or CIF (Spanish tax identification numbers for individuals and companies), and for businesses in other EU countries, the intra-Community VAT number.
• Registered address, which may differ from the delivery address.

The key is not to ask everyone for this data. A toggle such as “I am a business” or “I want an invoice” that reveals the fields only when they are needed keeps the form short for consumers.

Validate the NIF while the customer is there

A mistyped NIF is discovered when issuing the invoice, when the customer is no longer around. Checking it on the spot avoids back-and-forth:

• Format and check digit of the NIF, NIE (foreigner's identification number) and CIF.
• Consistency with the customer type: a company CIF is not a private individual's document.
• European VAT numbers against the European Commission's public VIES service, if you sell to businesses in other countries.

Full or simplified invoice

In Spain, a simplified invoice is generally allowed up to €400, VAT included, and some activities have a different limit. Above that, or if a business customer requests it, a full invoice with their tax details is required. If your store knows when to require those details, you will not end up with orders you cannot invoice properly.

When the customer changes their details

Another classic: a customer changes their company name or NIF after you have invoiced them, and your invoices and management software no longer match. For business customers, once an invoice has been issued with certain details, it is advisable for any change to go through you. And if you sell to businesses that ship to many addresses but are always invoiced the same way, the billing address should stay fixed.

Registration checklist

1. List every field in the registration form and note what you use it for. Remove the ones without an answer.
2. Decide whether the address goes in the registration form or at checkout, but not both.
3. Show company fields only to those who need them.
4. Validate NIF and IBAN on the spot, not when invoicing.
5. Review the privacy texts: what data, for what purpose, for how long.
6. Test the form on a mobile phone. If it tires you out, it tires the customer out.

And a maintenance note: registration forms depend heavily on the theme. If the theme and modules are not up to date with your PrestaShop version, it is common for a field to stop being saved without anyone noticing for weeks.

How to do it in PrestaShop

The Módulo de registro ampliado puts the address details in the registration form itself: twelve fields (address, phone, NIF, company, VAT number, province and others) that are installed disabled and that you enable, reorder and mark as required one by one. What the customer enters is stored in their customer record and, if you enable it, their first address is created automatically; it can check the letter of the NIF and NIE and hooks into the official GDPR module's hooks. RKR Datos de Facturación adds a “Request invoice” toggle at checkout with Individual, Self-employed or Company, checks the NIF before payment (check digit, VIES and, optionally, the Spanish Tax Agency with a certificate), requires a full invoice by amount or by group, and lets you fix the billing address and lock the details after the first invoiced order.