How to Add Age Verification to a Magento 2 Store?

If you look around, everyone is trying their hands at eCommerce. The primary reason is that consumer buying behaviour has undergone a noticeable transformation over the years. There’s no longer a preference for in-store shopping, as customers find online shopping equally rewarding, if not more.

Across the world, governments are introducing laws, strengthening eCommerce, and providing greater protection to consumers. This is motivating more people to turn to online shopping than before. However, setting up an online store is not a guarantee of success. You need to find ways to attract and retain customers.

Apart from that, there are various legal hurdles one must navigate. For example, getting a license, ensuring listed products comply with legal requirements, and more. Additionally, as an online store owner, it is your legal and ethical responsibility to provide content that is appropriate for people of all ages.

Your content must not harm your customers in any way: physically, emotionally, morally, or sexually. If you are selling products or services that are not appropriate or allowed for minors, it’s important that you set up a mechanism in your store to ensure only the right individuals can access your content.

This is where the Magento 2 age verification feature comes into play. In this article, we’ll discuss everything there is to know about age verification for Magento 2 and how to set it up for your store. Although most people are already familiar with the term, but let’s first get an overview about it.

What is Magento Online Age Verification?

Online age verification is a solution to prevent underage minors from accessing content not right for their age. For example, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and sexually explicit materials are age-restricted products and services and it is the responsibility of the online merchant to prevent children from consuming such content.

Online age verification confirms that the user is above the legal age to use age-restricted products and services the store is offering. Although it’s not as easy for digital stores as for physical stores to verify the age of a user, it’s important that the check is performed to comply with regulations.

The user has to be honest about their age if they are to avoid damaging content. Age verification is not only for the well-being of the store’s users but it also benefits merchants. Users get to consume content that is both appropriate and legitimate for them while merchants avoid the risks of any lawsuit or chargeback from parents.

Why is it Important to Implement Age Verification in Online Stores?

Compliance

Suppose you are selling tobacco products. Almost every country worldwide has laws which prohibits sale of tobacco products to people under the age of 18. Therefore, adding an online verification in Magento 2 will ensure compliance with the laws and protect you against legal action.

Social Responsibility

Businesses, including online stores, have a social responsibility to protect the people and the planet. Undoubtedly, minors are not old enough to make wise decisions. Thus, the online store must take reasonable steps to prevent minors from buying products/services that are not appropriate for them. Online age verification in Magento 2 help online stores fulfil their social responsibility.

Brand Image

When users see that a business is trying its best to protect minors and comply with legal requirements, it enhances the brand’s image. A positive perceived brand image leads to repeat sales and greater loyalty.

Reduce Chargebacks

Naturally, minors use their parents’ bank accounts to complete a purchase. In such a situation, the parent or cardholder can request a chargeback since the payment was made by an ineligible customer. To avoid such losses, implementing age verification is a must. It can also limit the legal liability for businesses.

How to Add Age Verification to Magento 2?

If you are a Magento 2 merchant offering age-sensitive products/services, you must be wondering how to implement age verification in your store. You need not worry as our Magento 2 Age Verification Extension has got you covered. It allows you to prevent any product, category, or CMS page from being used until the user verifies his age.

You may want to prevent underage users from making purchases only which you can do by restricting the Cart and Checkout pages. You can select any of the 10 popup templates. You have the option to enable age verification on any individual product or category page from their backend configuration.

How to Use the Extension?

After installing the extension, log in to your Magento 2 admin and click Stores -> Configuration. You will see the following sections.

General Configuration:

Here you can choose to enable or disable the module.

Template Configuration:

This section allows you to choose a template from among the 10 templates. Give the template a title and description and attach an image that will be displayed with the chosen template. For this example, I have given the following title and description.

Title Page: Restricted

Description: You need to be 18+ to access this page

CMS Page Configuration:

Here you can select all the CMS pages that you want to restrict to the allowed age group. You can also choose whether or not you want to restrict Cart and Checkout pages.

Configuration Options:

These options include whether you want to display checkbox or date, enable or disable the checkbox, enter text for the checkbox, etc. For this example, I have chosen the checkbox and the text for the checkbox is “I am 18+”.

Restriction Settings

This lets you choose the restriction age, the page where you want to redirect underage users, time to show popup, etc. For this example, I have chosen the age to be 18 and Home Page as a redirect CMS page.

Final Thoughts on Magento 2 Age Verification

This concludes our article on age verification for Magento 2. Once again, we would like to reiterate the importance of this feature. It can protect your store against legal challenges and improve brand image simultaneously. Therefore, set it up right away if you are offering products, services, or content which is not suitable for minors. Feel free to get in touch in case you have any issue in your Magento 2 store.

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