I've noticed recently that we are getting quite high cart abandonment at checkout so I 've gone throught the new checkout process today for the first time and was immediately caught out by the 'Contact Infomation' page which is the first page in the process and I personally feel at first glance, it appears to be forcing me to create an account or login to an existing account.

On my first try, I was repeatedly clicking the greyed out button that says 'Continue without signing in' and eventually gave up thinking something was wrong. It wasn't until my second visit that I realised that I had to enter my email at this stage in order to move forward.

I don't know why the CitrusLime checkout always seems to be such a challenge. A quick visit to a couple of competitors website and you are immediately presented with the option to checkout as guest which feels like a much softer approach to collecting customer details.

I know that personally, if I feel I am being forced to create an account then I will often not proceed.

Am I the only one who has this opinion?

Attached is a screenshot from Tredz checkout which seems much more relaxed and less pushy.