: Is it good to use social login into ecommerce website? We have our ecommerce site to sell company's products. I have read about social login (like stackeoverflow.com) and my boss wants to use

@Pope3001725

Full disclosure up front - I work at Janrain, which provides social login technology for websites.

We're seeing very strong interest in using social login on retail and eCommerce sites from our customers. The reason? The marginal/incremental value of a registration taking place is much higher than with other site types, since a registration is often tied to a checkout process. Forrester estimates that retailers experience 23% cart abandonment rates at checkout, because shoppers don't like creating new accounts the traditional way, filling out long forms, or remembering passwords. We think social login solves each of these challenges.

Regarding some of the feedback in this thread, most of the social networks and email providers store an email address for users that they can share with sites when using social login. Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, PayPal and Windows Live, for example, all provide a verified email address.

Confusion about which identity provider a user previously chose is easily remedied. This blog post discusses how a user's preferred identity can be remembered on future visits to eliminate any confusion - janrain.com/blog/how-leverage-social-login-part-2-social-media-best-practices-series/.
Regarding security, obviously if a Facebook user has chosen their dog's name as their password, then they are at risk. But online users are getting smarter about choosing better passwords for high-value sites which they visit with frequency. And companies like Facebook and Google have employed entire security teams devoted to account and password security - it is much more difficult to hack the social networks and email providers than other consumer sites across the web.

Some of our customers have elected to employ features such as second-factor authentication for users who register via social login, which is a pragmatic option on sensitive transactional websites (e.g. financial services).

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@Frith620

I think it is a good idea. There are many reasons for using as social network login as scoial login works either openid or oauth. Other reasons are:


It is totally misconceptions that you have to buy SSL, there is no need as every social network already have. Its totally wasted money to spend on SSL.
You don't have to maintain users password as ever website have login system, so it becomes impossible to remember every id and password. As in case of social network with single user id, you can login any website having social login.
It is again total misconceptions that you would not get email address of user. In social network you van also invite user friends. It will give the maximum generation of traffic by social plugging.
If you create your own plugging rather using others then there is no cost and all the specifications all available online that too free.

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@Cody1181609

There isn't a single answer, really. You need to consider your needs and goals. But MailChimp published a contra post on their blog just the other day that you might find interesting. They're not specifically an e-commerce site, but some of the considerations are relevant, particularly:


Security [or part of it] is put in someone else's hands
Confusion over how the user logged in previously.

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@Kevin317

Social Logins allow an easy alternative for account creation with username and password but it will be more beneficial if you make use of their APIs further to get hold of user's data to create a profile on your site.

Also, you can use many other calls to share the action of users on the Social Networking Sites which can make your application go viral(e.g. using Facebook Open Graph API to create aggregated stories about your product).

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@Gretchen104

Here are the pros and cons:

Pros


Easier for the user - no additional password to remember


Cons


Even if you offer a selection of logins there may be people who don't have one of those (or are suspicious of using them - e.g. if they use their Facebook login can you see their friends?) and so you have to offer a registration/login mechanism anyway, or else they can't shop with you.
You may not get the email address for the user from the login service, so you'll have to ask it anyway.

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@Mendez628

In my opinion this is not a good idea. I myself once suggested this, but I don't think it's suitable for an e-commerce website. Also, have a look at some successful e-commerce stores out there and you'll notice that they don't have Facebook/Twitter logins.

Social logins have their place, but I don't think e-commerce sites are the place for them.

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@Dunderdale272

I wouldn't require it in order to checkout. You might also encounter problems on SSL pages - EVERY item on an SSL secured page must be on a secure connection. So loading unsecured content or scripts from a social site on an SSL page will break the secure connection and users will see an unsecured connection in their browser.

It's impossible to say for sure what the right answers is without knowing anything about your site, but I don't see many situations where requiring a social login for payment processing is a good idea.

The better approach would possibly be letting users link a social account, but still having a standard account system for order processing and the like.

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