Customer Account on a Website or Online Store: Why It Matters and What Features to Include

In Brief

A customer account is a section of a website or online store where customers can view their orders, personal information, and loyalty rewards without having to call or email customer support. The essential features include personal details and marketing communication preferences, order history with one-click reordering, saved addresses and payment methods, and a wishlist. For online stores with a loyalty program, this also includes a points balance and a history of earned and redeemed rewards. For each transaction, customers should be able to see the date, the reason points were earned or redeemed, the number of points involved, and the remaining balance. Creating an account should not be mandatory to make a purchase: some visitors abandon their carts precisely because they are required to register during checkout. The best approach is to allow guest checkout and offer account registration after the purchase, potentially with an additional incentive. At the same time, registered customers tend to return more frequently and spend more than one-time visitors. This is the business case for customer accounts: they are not merely an extra website feature but a practical tool for reducing customer support requests and increasing repeat sales. Our portfolio includes a project that combines customer accounts with a loyalty program: the Vizaje Nica mobile application, featuring a digital loyalty card, purchase history, and a real-time points balance.

What Features Should a Customer Account Include?

1. Personal Information and Account Settings

The basic section includes the customer's name, contact details, password or authentication method, and preferences for receiving marketing messages and notifications. Customers should also be able to choose how they want to be contacted — by email, SMS, or push notifications — and unsubscribe without contacting customer support. A sensible approach is to request only the information essential for placing an order during registration (usually a name, email address, or phone number), allowing customers to complete the remaining fields later if they wish. The longer the registration form, the more likely visitors are to abandon it before completion.

2. Order History and One-Click Reordering

A complete list of previous orders should display their status, purchased items, total amount, and payment method, along with a "Reorder" button that adds the products from a previous order to the shopping cart with a single click. For stores selling products that customers purchase regularly (groceries, pet supplies, consumables), this is one of the most frequently used account features. Customers can quickly reorder familiar products without having to search for them again.

3. Saved Addresses and Payment Methods

Saved delivery addresses and linked cards or payment methods eliminate the need for customers to enter the same information every time they place an order. This functionality is useful beyond traditional online shopping. For example, in our EVPoint project (a network of electric vehicle charging stations), customers link their payment card once and can subsequently top up their balance without re-entering their card details. For customers using multiple delivery locations (branches, different recipients), it is convenient to assign names to saved addresses ("office", "warehouse", "home") and select them from a list during checkout.

4. Wishlist and Saved Products

Products that customers are interested in but do not purchase immediately can easily be forgotten once they leave the website. A wishlist accessible through their account on any device helps reduce this risk. Customers can return to saved products later, while the store can remind them about these items through email or push notifications.

5. Loyalty Program: Points Balance and Transaction History

If an online store offers a loyalty program, the customer account provides a convenient way to check rewards information without contacting support. Two essential elements are needed: the current points balance and a detailed transaction history. The information that should be included in this history is explained in a separate section below.

6. Customer Support Request Status

If the store provides customer support through live chat or a ticketing system, it makes sense to keep the history of these requests in the customer account. This allows customers to track the progress of their inquiries without repeatedly asking for updates. For B2B customer portals, this section often includes user roles and access permissions for multiple employees of the client company. This is a separate topic we explored in our article about B2B vs. B2C online stores.

7. Documents: Receipts, Invoices, and Warranties

For online stores, and especially for B2B customers, it is useful to keep electronic receipts, invoices, and warranty certificates in one place within the customer account. This reduces unnecessary correspondence with the customer's accounting department and minimizes requests such as "Could you send us last month's invoice again?".

Loyalty Program: Points Balance, Earning, and Redemption

A loyalty program without a transparent transaction history can undermine customer trust. If customers can only see their total points balance without understanding how it was calculated, even a small discrepancy between expectations and the actual balance (points that appear to have "disappeared" or fewer points awarded than expected) may result in a customer support inquiry. A properly designed transaction history should display the following information for each entry:

• Transaction date and time;
• Transaction type — points earned, redeemed, expired, or reversed (for example, due to a product return);
• Number of points and, if necessary, the remaining balance after the transaction;
• Transaction reason — which purchase, review, registration, birthday, or friend referral generated the points, or which order the points were redeemed for;
• Expiration date of earned points, if the loyalty program includes points expiration.

It is also important to define the validity period of loyalty points in advance. If the expiration period is too short, customers may perceive it as an attempt to avoid honoring rewards. If it is too long, the incentive to earn and use points may become less effective. A balanced approach is to establish a clear expiration policy, explain it in advance, send reminders a few days before points expire ("You have 200 points remaining, expiring in 5 days"), and offer more flexible conditions for customers with the highest loyalty status or purchase volume.

A loyalty program can also extend to physical retail locations. If a business operates brick-and-mortar stores, a digital card with a QR code or barcode can replace a traditional plastic loyalty card. The cashier scans the code at checkout, and the customer's points balance and transaction history are updated immediately after the purchase, regardless of whether it was made online or in-store. This is exactly how our Vizaje Nica application works: it provides a unified purchase history and a shared loyalty points balance for online and offline purchases across 11 connected stores in the retail network.

How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Customer Account and Loyalty Program?

Based on our experience, a customer account with authentication, user roles, and essential sections (personal information, orders, and addresses) is typically included in the development cost of an online store. A complete turnkey online store developed by our team costs between €3,000 and €15,000+, while a standalone customer account with authentication and user roles, developed as part of a corporate website or web portal, starts at €600. A loyalty program is an additional module with its own business logic: earning and redeeming points, transaction history, notifications about expiring rewards, and, for physical retail locations, synchronization of points balances between the website, point-of-sale system, and 1C, if required. According to our preliminary estimates, such a module adds approximately €800 to €2,000+ to the project cost, depending on whether the program is limited to online purchases or must also operate in physical stores. The exact cost is calculated individually after reviewing the project requirements.

When Is a Basic Customer Account Enough, and When Do You Need a Loyalty Program?

• A basic customer account is sufficient when customers make one-time or infrequent purchases, and their decision to return depends primarily on product or service quality rather than rewards (for example, custom-made furniture).
• A loyalty program makes sense when purchases are frequent or recurring (groceries, pharmacy products, pet supplies, cosmetics), and customer retention is an important business goal. In this case, reward points provide an additional reason for customers to choose your store again instead of a competitor offering similar prices.
• Combining offline and online sales is beneficial when a business operates both an online store or website and physical retail locations. In this situation, a unified purchase history and shared points balance are especially valuable compared with an online-only business, where customers can already access all their information through a single website.
• Creating an account should not be required to complete a purchase — if customers must register before placing an order, some will abandon the checkout process without making a purchase. A better solution is to allow guest checkout and offer registration afterward with an additional incentive (for example, "Create an account and earn reward points for this order").

How We Implement These Features at ilab.md

Our technology stack includes PHP/CodeIgniter and MySQL for web development and React Native for mobile applications. This is why we typically develop customer accounts as part of the same codebase as the website or online store rather than as a separate service. This approach makes it easier to manage order information, delivery addresses, and loyalty points in one place without having to synchronize data between multiple systems. We also have experience developing customer accounts that work across both online and offline channels. One example is the Vizaje Nica mobile application with its integrated loyalty program. It includes a digital loyalty card with a barcode for scanning at checkout, online and offline purchase history, a real-time points balance, integration with 1C, and push notifications about new promotions. The project was completed in 4 months, included 5 integrations, and connected 11 stores across the retail network.

Sources

• Account Page UX Design: How to Increase Sales and Reorders — Concise Studio
• Importance of Customer Account Page for Online Stores — Kiwi Sizing
• The Value of Keeping the Right Customers — Harvard Business Review
• Guest Checkout vs. Forced Login — Corbado
• Guide to Loyalty Points Expiration — Voucherify