Hi,
The way the checkout works, we can't allow someone to use an email address of an existing user account. Otherwise, it would create a security issue as anyone with the email address of a user account on your website would be able to access the addresses of that user and other sensetive data that only the user himself should access.
Now, you could try to delete the code:
if(@$userInDB->user_cms_id) {
$ret['status'] = false;
$ret['messages'][] = array(JText::_('EMAIL_ADDRESS_ALREADY_USED'), 'warning');
$reset_url = JRoute::_('index.php?option=com_users&view=reset');
$ret['messages'][] = array('<a href="'.$reset_url.'">'.JText::_('PLEASE_CLICK_HERE_TO_RESET_PASSWORD').'</a>', 'warning');
return $ret;
}
in the file administrator/components/com_hikashop/classes/user.php to remove that security check.
However, I can't guarantee the proper functioning of the checkout after that.