Oracle Commerce Cloud Service supports several types of shopper:
Anonymous shoppers have not logged in and are not tied to a saved profile. These shoppers are also called guest shoppers.
Registered shoppers are shoppers who log in to a personal account. These shoppers are allowed to self-register and manage their own billing and shipping addresses.
Account-based shoppers are shoppers who log in using contact credentials that have been defined as part of a business account. Account-based shoppers cannot self-register; in other words, they must be added to a business account by an administrator in Commerce Cloud. Also, account-based shoppers must use account-level billing and shipping addresses that have been created by a merchant administrator. Account-based shoppers cannot edit the account-level addresses.
In Commerce Cloud, an anonymous shopper can browse and add items to her cart. The anonymous shopper will see products in the default catalog and prices from the default price list group. Registered shoppers will also see products from the default catalog and default price list group, while account-based shoppers will see the catalog and price list group assigned to their business account.
If an anonymous shopper logs in to a business account, the login triggers a comparison between the items in the shopper’s cart and the products available in the business account’s assigned catalog. If items exist in the cart that are not present in the business account’s catalog, those items are removed and the shopper is notified.
If an anonymous shopper logs into a personal account, no comparison is necessary because anonymous shoppers and registered shoppers use the same catalog and price list group.
Understanding the types of shoppers your storefront must support is critical to designing page layouts properly and making appropriate choices about the widgets you use. The following sections describe settings you can use to control the storefront experience for different types of shoppers.
