Customer Login question

[Robin2]

In the Checkout Settings section there is now an option for Customers to login and there is a button to allow them to purchase without logging in, or to require them to register first.

If they are not required to register will they be able to login when they return to buy something else? Or must they register first?

If the latter it still leaves the likelihood that the same customer will buy several times but will appear as several separate customers in the customer list. Is there any way to resolve this?

[joshjen]

From what I've found with our customer list - when a customer buys and enters their email address, it's the email address that keeps them as a seperate customer. For example, we had a customer who was ordering with the name "Jane Doe", when she got married and moved house, the list just updated her name to "Jane Smith" and her new address as it recognised her email address stayed the same. Does that make sense?
As to your other questions... don't know, try it by placing dummy orders under different names and scenarios. You can always delete that info as you need to.

[dferguson]

The email address is the key field.

For example:

If I (David Ferguson) make two orders using two different email addresses, you will end up with two David Ferguson's in your customer database.