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As the most popular ecommerce plugin on WordPress, open-source platform WooCommerce offers exceptional flexibility, scalability, and customization for businesses of all sizes. Whether you're running a small-to-medium shop or an enterprise-scale storefront, WooCommerce provides the tools to manage products, payments, and customers within the familiar WordPress ecosystem.
Descope’s WordPress Plugin makes authentication effortless for WooCommerce shops by enabling customizable authentication flows that remove the need for traditional passwords. Sites using WooCommerce and standard WordPress can both benefit from Descope’s passwordless authentication, single sign-on (SSO), and adaptive multi-factor authentication (MFA).
Recently, we added two new features to help WordPress and WooCommerce merchants using Descope gain deeper insights into the user journey while offering customers more control over their authentication experience:
Anonymous user tracking: Learn about unregistered user behavior, incorporating pre-signup data into full accounts after account creation.
User profile widget: An embeddable widget that allows users to manage their profile—including security and authentication preferences—without leaving your site.
These new options further enhance the already robust suite of tools available to WooCommerce and WordPress storefronts that choose Descope as their authentication provider. To get started, merchants using either platform can follow the guide below.
Setting up the Descope WooCommerce Plugin
Download the plugin: Download the plugin as a ZIP file from the Descope GitHub repository.
Install the plugin: Install the plugin on your WordPress Admin dashboard by uploading the ZIP file.
Activate the plugin: Go to the "Plugins" section in your WordPress dashboard and activate Descope.
Configure your authentication: Use the Descope Console to configure your preferred authentication methods (passwordless, MFA, SSO).
Add your project details: Add your project details in the Descope Settings tab of your WordPress site.
Embed login flows and widgets: Add Descope’s login flows and widgets to your WordPress site using simple shortcodes.
Once you’ve followed these steps, your WordPress site will have enterprise-grade authentication up and running! For more detailed setup instructions, refer to our documentation.
Gaining consistent insights with anonymous user tracking
A staggering 86% of ecommerce site visitors are anonymous. It’s an undeniable fact that most would-be customers are wary of handing over their email addresses or trusting yet another retailer with their credentials. Anonymous user tracking provides a hands-off way of learning more about a user’s preferences and behavior without forcing them to sign up.
While some cookie-based methods can store certain information about a site visitor, this approach uses tokens to identify users even before they register. When they eventually create an account, the token linked to their past history is merged into the new account. Within your anonymous user creation flow, you can include WooCommerce cookies that are on the page in your anonymous user token.
They’ll be able to retain all the custom data you choose—preferences, geographical region, even guest checkout purchases—providing a smooth transition from visitor to customer.
How to implement anonymous user tracking
To implement anonymous user tracking, you just need to add two authentication flows to your WooCommerce site:
Flow 1: Create an anonymous user JWT
The flow generates a JSON Web Token (JWT) for anonymous visitors. You can embed this flow wherever you want to initiate an anonymous profile, such as a guest checkout page, a landing page, or a wishlist.
Once triggered, the flow creates a JWT with custom attributes you include such as cart items, browsing history, or session metadata. This enables several powerful use cases, including:
Abandoned cart recovery: Track items added to a cart by anonymous users and send them targeted reminders or discounts when they return.
Personalized product recommendations: Tailor product suggestions based on a visitor’s browsing history, even before they log in.
Limited-time guest discounts: Offer special discounts to anonymous users based on their activity to encourage sign-ups.
Engagement analytics: Gather insights into how anonymous users interact with your store to optimize UI/UX and marketing strategies.
Flow 2: Convert an anonymous user to an authenticated user
When a guest decides to sign up or log in, the flow will check for an existing Anonymous User JWT and seamlessly merge their session data into their new profile. If no JWT is found, the standard sign-up/login process proceeds normally.
Where should you convert?
There are multiple points in your site where it makes sense to convert an anonymous user into an authenticated user:
Order confirmation page: After placing an order as a guest, users can be prompted to sign up and associate their purchase with a new account.
Main login page: When guest users attempt to log in, you can check for past anonymous sessions and carry over their previous activity for a seamless experience.
Ultimately, the choice depends on the overall experience you want to create. Pushing for registration too hard leads to drop-offs, with 26% of abandoned carts resulting from forced account creation. Anonymous user tracking allows you to start building a relationship with a soon-to-be-customer without making them feel obligated to hand over contact information.
Enabling the User Profile Widget for easy account management
The User Profile Widget provides a clear and simple way for customers to manage their accounts without navigating away from your store. With just a few clicks, users can update their personal information and authentication preferences.
By embedding this widget in WooCommerce, using the [user-profile-widget] shortcode, merchants can reduce support requests related to account management while providing a better customer experience.
The User Profile Widget can be used in tandem with the WooCommerce [woocommerce_my_account] shortcode, allowing merchants to integrate Descope authentication and profile management within the familiar WooCommerce account dashboard.
Merchants can personalize the User Profile Widget to match their brand’s look and feel, ensuring a consistent shopping experience.
Minimizing friction for maximum conversions
With Descope’s WooCommerce integration, merchants can create seamless, secure, and user-friendly shopping experiences that drive conversions and improve satisfaction. By leveraging passwordless authentication, anonymous user tracking, and the User Profile Widget, businesses using WooCommerce can reduce friction in the checkout process, capture valuable customer insights, and provide intuitive account management.
Higher conversion: Eliminate password friction and reduce cart abandonment by offering passwordless options that customers prefer, turning auth barriers into a business enabler.
Deep customer insights: Track anonymous users before they make an account, leverage A/B testing to optimize flows, and draw from robust analytics to pinpoint issues.
Enhanced security: Protect customer accounts with contemporary authentication protocols and methods like magic links, passkeys, and social login.
Improved retention: Keep shoppers coming back for more with smooth logins. Use embedded links within email promos to authenticate users directly into their cart.
Low-code configuration: Create conversion-centric auth flows in a drag & drop simple interface. Experiment and make changes in real time without touching your code base.
Customer expectations around security, convenience, and personalization only continue to grow. By integrating Descope with WooCommerce, merchants can stay ahead of the curve—offering a frictionless, secure, and engaging shopping experience that not only meets but exceeds modern consumer demands.
To get started with Descope, sign up for a free account or book a demo with our engineers to learn more.
