Overview
Customers are the people who purchase products from your store. In a business-to-consumer store, a customer is a shopper who buys products for their personal use. In a business-to-business store, a customer is a buyer who purchases products on behalf of their organization.
When a customer is ready to purchase for the first time, the customer creates a profile. At a minimum, the customer provides personal contact information, such as full name, telephone numbers, and addresses. As a store administrator, you can extend the types of information that you want to collect about customers. For example, if the customer is a buyer, you might also collect information about their organization and preferred method of payment.
As a customer uses your store, you can enhance the customer profile with relationships to other information, such as payment methods, promotions, and order history.
Accounts represent the next generation of Customers. While Customers are essential, Accounts offer enhanced capabilities. We recommend using Accounts for any of your new use cases.
To enable customers to create and manage their own profiles, implement customer tokens. Tokens are encrypted to protect usernames and passwords.