The Night Our Signups Spiked (and Broke): A First-Person Fix with Custom Registration Fields

Short version: our weekend promo went viral, our registration form didn’t scale socially (lots of curious traffic, little intent), and our support team learned the many shapes of “I can’t log in.” This is a first-person postmortem of the mess—and the exact steps I used to rebuild the flow with custom fields that actually help the store.

The add-on I used for the rebuild is User Registration—because I needed flexible fields, sane validation, and a dashboard the ops folks could read before coffee. When I shop around for addon patterns, I usually skim WordPress Addons, but once I commit, I stick to one kit. For my paper trail: I stash runbooks under a boring label—gplpal—so future-me can find what I did at 2 a.m.

You’ll see the phrase User Registration - Custom Form Fields for WooCommerce a couple of times below. That’s intentional—I’m writing the exact thing I searched for when I realized “email + password” wasn’t enough.

What Broke (Postmortem, blunt edition)

Symptom. Signups tripled; verified customers did not. Support tickets spiked with “password reset loop,” “where do I add VAT,” and “how do I get a business invoice.”

Root causes, after a nap: - We asked the wrong questions. Email, password… then we begged for missing data post-purchase (tax IDs, size, niche). Customers hate scavenger hunts. - Validation was fuzzy. People pasted phone numbers with emojis (not kidding); our backend tried to “be helpful.” - One form for every use case. A wholesale buyer doesn’t fill the same fields as a hobbyist. We knew this; we ignored it.

Impact. Cart drop-off rose 8%; support delayed real work to babysit accounts; our reporting had holes where attributes should live.

The Plan (one page, taped to my monitor)

1. Ask only what we use in the first 7 days. Everything else can wait.
2. Collect compliance data at the right time. VAT/Tax IDs at registration for B2B, not in a frantic email after checkout.
3. Use conditional fields. If a user picks “business,” show the business block; if “personal,” keep it breezy.
4. Be explicit about why we ask. A tiny line under each field beats a privacy novella later.
5. Make validation and errors human. No regex poetry in front of people.

This is where User Registration - Custom Form Fields for WooCommerce paid rent: drag-and-drop fields, per-role rules, and conditional logic without black-belt PHP.

Workshop: The Registration I Actually Shipped (Copy Me)

1) Field design with intent (15 minutes)

• Account basics: Email, password (twice), first name.
• Purpose of account (radio): Personal / Business.
• If Business → show: Business name, Country, VAT/Tax ID, Website (optional).
• Optional profile (collapsed): Industry, Team size, “What are you here to do?” (multi-select).

Why it works: attributes flow straight into segmentation and invoicing, not a support ping-pong game.

2) Microcopy that lowers blood pressure

• Under VAT/Tax: “Used only on invoices, editable later.”
• Under password: “8+ chars—passphrases work great.”
• Under purpose: “This helps us set tax and receipts right now.”

3) Validation without drama

• Email: standard format; MX check is overkill at signup.
• VAT/Tax: country-aware pattern; show an example (“e.g., DE123456789”).
• Phone (if you collect it): E.164 normalize server-side; store raw for display.
• Website: accept bare domains (example.com) and add schema behind the scenes.

4) Role + capability mapping (practical)

• Personal → customer
• Business → customer_b2b (custom role). This unlocks: tax-exempt review queue, net terms application (later), and B2B pricing lists.

5) Lifecycle events you’ll forget unless you list them

• On registration: tag profile with purpose; create empty “Company” object if business.
• On email verification: trigger welcome flow (personal vs. business copy).
• On first order: if business and missing VAT, nudge politely on thank-you + account page.
• On profile update: log diffs (auditable invoices love this).

UX in the Wild (I watched three friends sign up)

Pattern 1 — Skimming. Everyone skipped the optional section unless the labels were clear. I renamed it to “Tell us once, skip future forms.” Completion went up.

Pattern 2 — Fear of permanence. Business signups paused at Tax ID. A tiny line—“You can edit this later”—deleted the pause.

Pattern 3 — Mobile thumbs. The purpose radios were too close to the submit button; I bumped spacing to avoid accidental submits.

My rule of thumb: if I can’t explain a field’s purpose in nine words, it doesn’t belong on this form.

Accessibility + Internationalization (the quiet heroes)

• Labels outside inputs. Placeholders vanish on type; labels shouldn’t.
• Error mapping. Move focus to the first invalid field; announce error to screen readers.
• Country-aware addresses. Not everyone has a “state.” Respect local formats.
• Name fields. One box for “Full name” beats guessing given/family order in half the world.
• Keyboard travel. Tab order must be logical; group radios in a fieldset.

You don’t get compliments for this; you get fewer rage quits. I’ll take it.

The Boring Part That Saves Money: Data you actually use

Here’s the mapping I pasted into my analytics doc (and into ESP audience rules):

If a field has no consumer in the next sprint, it doesn’t ship.

Guardrails I Turned On (so ops sleeps)

• Email verification required to enable orders over a threshold.
• Business role triggers a manual VAT review until first order clears.
• Duplicate detection: same email or same hashed card → merge prompt, not a new account.
• Rate limits: slow down “resend verification” so support doesn’t become a CAPTCHA.
• Privacy toggles: consent for marketing separate from T&C; store timestamps and IPs.

This is where the add-on’s conditional fields and role mapping paid off again—no code calisthenics.

Before/After (tiny but loud differences)

Before
- Email, password, chaos.
- VAT arrives via angry ticket.
- No idea who’s B2B until they yell “invoice.”
- Support pastes the same macro eight times a day.

After
- Purpose radios route people to the right experience.
- VAT collected once, validated once, reused forever.
- B2B has a role, not a vibe.
- Support has fewer “where do I…” and more “thank you” (rare, but sweet).

Performance & Security Pass (because forms get heavy fast)

• Fonts: preload one weight; the form doesn’t need typography fireworks.
• JS: conditionals server-rendered; client enhances only labels and live hints.
• Bot guard: invisible challenge first, then honeypot; CAPTCHA as last resort.
• Rate limit: per IP/email on create + verify endpoints.
• Logging: redact personally sensitive bits in logs (mask IDs, keep last 4 if needed).

A form that’s “fast enough” is the one people finish.

The 20-Minute Checklist (print me)

• [ ] Purpose radios (personal/business) with conditional blocks
• [ ] Labels outside inputs; focus jumps to first error
• [ ] VAT/Tax field: country-aware pattern + gentle example
• [ ] Email verify gate; resend throttled
• [ ] Business role with review queue + invoice defaults
• [ ] Optional profile: industry, team size, intent (clear reasons)
• [ ] Fully keyboardable; Tab order logical; radios grouped
• [ ] Analytics mapping written; ESP audiences connected
• [ ] Copy for errors/warnings is human (not regex)
• [ ] “Why we ask” microcopy under any sensitive field

Tape this near your desk. Future-you will thank you on the next launch.

Little Snippets I Actually Used

1) Country-aware tax hint (simplified client helper)

const examples = { DE: "DE123456789", FR: "FRXX999999999", GB: "GB123456789" };
function taxExample(country) {
  return examples[country] || "e.g., country code + number";
}

2) Move focus to the first invalid field (accessibility nudge)

const firstInvalid = document.querySelector(".field--error input, .field--error select");
if (firstInvalid) firstInvalid.focus();

Nothing fancy—just the stuff people feel instantly.

FAQ I Keep Getting (short, honest answers)

Q: Should I collect phone numbers?
Only if you’ll use them in the first week (delivery updates, high-value support). Otherwise, skip; people guard numbers closely.

Q: Where do consents live?
Separate marketing consent from terms. Store both with timestamps; make it easy to withdraw without detective work.

Q: How many optional fields is “too many”?
My cutoff is three. Past that, people stop reading and start guessing.

Q: What about social logins?
If your audience expects them, add one (not six). Social login doesn’t replace custom fields; it just pre-fills the basics.

Closing (and a promise to future-me)

The rebuild worked because I stopped chasing “minimal forms” and started chasing useful accounts. With User Registration - Custom Form Fields for WooCommerce, I asked fewer, better questions and did it once, at the right time. Support calmed down, invoices were correct on first try, and my marketing teammate finally had real attributes to segment by.

Next time I’m tempted to “ship the default and hope,” I’ll re-read this, copy the checklist, and open the presets. My job isn’t to make forms shorter; it’s to help people start with confidence and help my team skip the scavenger hunt