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How to set up account approval for certain types of customers
How to set up account approval for certain types of customers

Examples of how to allow regular customers to register for an account while requiring account approval for wholesale customers

Brett Shelley avatar
Written by Brett Shelley
Updated over a week ago

Overview

This how-to guide will explain some different ways to use the account approval settings in Customer Fields. It's common for some merchants to cater to both B2C and B2B customers on the same store, and in these cases you may want to review wholesale customers before approving their account, while simultaneously allowing regular customers to register and shop without further ado.

Although you cannot approve certain customers but not others with one form, this is certainly something you can do with multiple forms and a few easy steps. Here's two common options we suggest:

  • Option A (most popular): Set up two registration forms; one to automatically register regular customers, and one to require account approval for wholesale customers.

  • Option B: Create a single landing form for all customers, and use some form rules and steps to redirect wholesale customers to a separate wholesale form.

Of course there are other ways to handle this as well, so keep in mind that the options in this guide are just meant to be suggestions 😁

Option A

Part 1: Regular registration form

Note: You can either use the standard registration form that is included with the store's theme, or you can create a customized registration form using Customer Fields. This option talks about using a customized registration form in the app.

Step 1. Create a new form using the Forms page in the app, or designate one of the existing forms in the app to be a regular registration form. Make sure to set this form to use the 'Automatically create customer accounts' setting.

For existing forms this can be done by going to Settings > Account options. See screenshot below:

Step 2. Make any desired customizations to the form using the tools in the form builder (if needed).

Step 3. Install this form as your store's main registration form by following the prompts on the form installation page. You can find more details on form installation using this help article.

Part 2: Wholesale registration form

Step 1. Create a new form, or designate one of your existing forms to be a wholesale registration form. Set this form to "Require account approval". This can be doing by going to Settings > Account options. See screenshot below:

Step 2. Make any desired customizations to the form using the tools in the form builder (if needed).

Step 3. Install this form on a separate page by adding a Customer Fields app block to the page template in your theme editor. More details on how to complete this process can be found using this help article.

Step 4. Add the new page with the wholesale registration form to the store's navigation using the Shopify admin. This can be doing by going to Online Store > Navigation. Make sure to add a new menu item linking to the page with the wholesale form, and then click the 'Save' button.

The end result

We've provided a screenshot below that shows an example of the end result for Option A. Notice that both forms are easily accessible on the store; the wholesale registration form can be accessed via a "Wholesale Signup" link in the main navigation, and the regular registration form can be accessed via on a button on the home page (as well as being accessed using "Account" button in the store's header).

πŸŽ‰ Pro-tip: You could go an extra mile and add a link at the top of the regular registration form (or some other easily noticeable location within the form) that will take customers to the page with the wholesale form. See the screenshot below for an example (this was done using two display fields; one paragraph and one link):


Option B

Part 1: Landing form with regular registration

Step 1. Create a new form, or designate one of your existing forms to be a regular registration form. Make sure to set this form to use the 'Automatically create customer accounts' setting. This can be done by going to Settings > Account options. See screenshot below:

Step 2. Create two steps for your form. For the first step on the form, add a single field to ask if the customer if they are a wholesaler, and add a link field that will have a URL to redirect them to a wholesale form if they are. Please note that the exact URL for the wholesale form will be determined later on, so for now you don't need to add anything in for the 'Link url'. See screenshot below for an example:

Step 3. Add all of the desired fields for regular customers to register for an account on the second step of the form.

Step 4. In the 'Rules' tab of the form builder, create a new rule. Set the condition to be if "Are you a wholesale customer" equals "Yes" or true. You'll then want to set up three rule actions:

  • Hide the second form step (with the regular customer registration fields)

  • Show wholesale form link field

  • Hide form actions and errors (this will disable form submission by hiding buttons)

Of course the exact phrasing for these fields is subject to change based on what you indicate when building the form. See the screenshot below to see an example of what the rule should look like:

Step 5. Install this form as your store's main registration form.

Part 2: Wholesale registration form

Step 1. Create a new form, or designate one of your existing forms to be a wholesale registration form. Set this form to "Require account approval". This can be doing by going to Settings > Account options. See screenshot below:

Step 2. Add the desired fields and rules (if applicable).

Step 3. Install this form on a separate page template.

Step 4. Take note of the local path from the wholesale form page (it might look something like /pages/wholesale-signup) and add it to the Regular registration form's link field (see Step 2 in the Regular registration form section above).

The end result

When you're all done, the live forms could look something like the following when using Option B:


Questions, comments, or concerns?

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