Could I (should I) find a way to automatically delete customers' email addresses from my admin?

[Davefromcornwall]

I have a 2.3.1 store in which I have managed (I lie, other people have managed, and I've just used their methods) to lop a couple of pages off the checkout procedure and generate a random password for each customer, which is then sent to them in the confirmation email. Full details of that process are here.

 

The downside to this system is that customers don't read the confirmation email, or it gets stuck in a spam filter, so they don't know that the checkout process generates a random password for them. So I can either make it more obvious that there is an account creation process going on at the time of purchase, which is something I was striving to avoid when I made these changes, or I can try to find a way to allow returning customers to shop without them needing an account.

 

Am I right in thinking that Oscommerce uses email addresses to tell if someone has been to the site before? If so, if I could find a way to delete customers' email addresses after a day or so, that would allow returning customers to go through the whole checkout procedure as if they had never been there before, wouldn't it?

 

But this sounds so simple that I'm guessing that there are downsides to doing this that I haven't yet thought of! So before I even think about how it would be possible to remove customers' email records from my admin, I thought I'd better come here and ask those who are more knowledgeable than I am about Oscommerce and how it works, because no downside immediately jumps out at me!

 

Some advice on potential pitfalls, that sort of thing, would be great. If, and it's a biggish if, I wanted to get rid of customer email addresses a day (or whatever length of time) after they were entered into the database, would it be a difficult thing to do?

[Xpajun]

PWA - payment without account, a contribution, does this already

 

PWA is great if you only have onetime shoppers - I really hate going back to a store to buy something only to find I have to enter my details all over again - yes it does put me off buying

[Davefromcornwall]

PWA - payment without account, a contribution, does this already

 

PWA is great if you only have onetime shoppers - I really hate going back to a store to buy something only to find I have to enter my details all over again - yes it does put me off buying

Thanks for replying. Yes, I think I tried PWA a few years ago, on another site. It might be an idea for me to have a look through the latest version to see if I can borrow bits from it, but I am pleased with my checkout process at the moment, so I don't think I'll install the whole thing, in case I mess it up!