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Customers Overview
Without the customer, e-commerce wouldn't be very exciting (or profitable), so a thorough understanding of the customer as treated by Foxy is important for any merchant or developer using Foxy.
How Customers Are Defined and Created
There are a few ways to create a customer record in Foxy. The first and most common is to allow the customer record to be created automatically upon a successful transaction. The second method is to create the customer record directly in the admin or via the API.
Regardless the method of creation, the single most important piece of a customer record is the email address used. The email address can be considered the unique key for the customer; there cannot be two different (non-guest) customer records with the same email address in a single store.
Guest Customers and Saved Customers
Depending on the store configuration, Foxy can allow customers to checkout as guests or to checkout with an account.
Guest customers
Do not enter a password.
Can enter an email address already used by other guest or saved customer records.
Cannot purchase a subscription. (Guest mode as an option is hidden if a subscription is in the cart.)
Cannot be retrieved, created or edited via the API.
Cannot retrieve their information if they purchase again in the future and enter their previously used email. (Because they have no password, there'd be no way for the customer to authenticate anyway.)
Cannot be converted into a non-guest customer.
To set up your checkout to use guest customers only, follow the instructions here.
Non-guest customers
Must have an email address unique among non-guest customers.
Can be created and edited via the API.
Can enter their previously used password when returning to a checkout page, or can checkout as a guest (if guest checkout is allowed by the store) to have their saved information automatically populated on the checkout.
Cannot be converted into a guest customer.
Saved Payment Information
Customers can have one and only one saved payment method associated with their account. If a customer has a subscription associated with his or her account, the checkbox to elect to save the payment method on checkout is required to be checked, and an error explaining this is displayed if it is unchecked.
What is important to note is that if a customer has an active subscription being paid for by credit card xxxx1234 and makes another purchase in the future using card xxx5678, that new card becomes the only saved payment method for the customer, and all active subscriptions will use that new card when they run. (While this may sound problematic, in 3+ years we haven't heard of it being an issue. That said, if you have a situation where multiple separate payment methods are required please let us know.)