When customers fill out a address form to buy a product, it is important that you ask them only the information you absolutely need.

Customizing your address form is one of the ways to optimize your checkout page experience based on your business needs and target audience. We inherit many great features from top eComm platforms in the country-based shipping form, but also enable multiple customization options. For example, you can delete the fields you do not need, change their order or add custom fields.

1. The default address form

The default form (default Shopify address form) is the one you see in your Shipping section. The customization options are limited with the default form. In the preview mode, the Email and Phone fields are not displayed. If you want to see the full default address form, you can use the preview mode in the appropriate section of the Checkify admin. Refer to the column (menu) on the left.

Default address form - the preview in the form builder

There are different kinds of previews available:

By device. See how the form is displayed on mobile and desktop devices by clicking the icons (desktop / mobile) on top of the form preview.
By country. Change the base country the form is displayed for. It will change the fields. For example, the form for the USA will have States, while the form for Italy will have Provinces.

Note: The default form is active until you create at least one custom address form. You cannot delete the default form.

1.1. Reducing the number of countries

If you want to limit the number of geos in the list of countries which your buyers can select on the checkout page, you can do this in Countries section. You can find it in the bottom left corner of your interface. Please save the default form after introducing changes.

1.2. Default address form settings

Checkify enables some powerful on-the-go customizations for the default address form.

The following options can be disabled / enabled just in one click:

Phone number field
Phone number field required / optional
Phone number field is presented instead of Email field
Address (2nd line) field
Address (2nd line filed) required / optional
Company field
Company field required / optional

2. Custom address form

A custom address form is a static form you can create for your specific business needs. With our address form editor (builder), you will be able to define which standard fields should be displayed, how they should be ordered, and much more.

2.1 Create a custom address form

To create a new custom address form:

Go to the Shipping section, Shipping forms tab.
Click Create shipping form +.
Choose either a form from scratch or select a base country form.
If you start from scratch, you will see no preselected fields. Selecting a base country will get you started with a Shopify address form for the selected country, with all the specific fields and typical address logic.

Two ways to create a address form

If you create a custom form from scratch, it will be set for all countries. To limit the number of countries in the dropdown of the "Country" field, you will need to define the locations for which this address form will be displayed. Click the Edit countries button at the bottom of the left panel and make your selection.

With such settings, this custom form will be displayed for the all customers

Important: if you create several custom address forms for different countries, all of them will be listed in the "Country" dropdown.

2.2 Reorder the fields

To change the order of the fields in the address form, you can drag and drop points in the menu on the left. Just drag them to set the order you’d like to see.

Reorder the fields so that the form makes more sense to your customers

2.3 Delete the fields

To delete the fields, go to the menu on the left and click the field you want to remove. You will see the bin icon. Click it to remove the field.

Click the field to remove it

For example, you can remove the address and some other related fields if you sell digital products and only need an email.

Important: Shopify requires any address form to have at least one required contact field (email or phone number). They use this info to create customer profiles in their databases.

If you choose to delete the email field, you will need to change the setting on Shopify so that it identifies your customers with a phone number and saves this property.

Go to the Shopify admin panel > Settings > Checkout > Customer contact.

Select the option “Customers can check out using either their phone number or email”.

For Shopify to identify your user by phone, if they leave only their phone number, allow using the phone number to check out in the default checkout settings

3. Customize selected fields

You can edit all the elements by selecting them and adjusting them from the menu on the right. In this section, we will study how you can edit the fields of your address form.

Currently, you can:

edit element’s label text
make it required
set up the maximum length
change the element width for the desktop and mobile devices.

3.1 Edit element’s label text

To change the label text:

Select the element.
Edit the text in the menu on the right.

For example, if you don’t like the default label of the "Postal code", you can change it to "Zip".

Edit label text

3.2 Make the field required

If the field is required, your customers won’t finish the purchase without filling it in.

To make the field required:

Select the element on the left panel (column).
Click the Required toggle in the right menu (column).

Example: This setting will make the field required

3.3 Set up the maximum length

Maximum length toggles the input length limit of the field to avoid typos in the standardized data, like Zip codes.

To limit the maximum length of a field:

Select the field on the left panel.
Set the toggle of Max length to active.
Add the maximum field input length.

This setting will limit the "Postal/Zip code" input field to nine characters

3.4 Change field’s width

In the layout section of the menu, you can change how much space a field takes: set it to fill 100%, 50%, or 33% of the row. You can adjust the layout if, for example, you see that the Province field looks too small in the desktop version of the checkout.

Note: You can edit the field's width separately for only desktop layout.

To adjust the layout:

Select the element.
In the menu on the right, select two blocks for 50% of the general width. Or even one, if you want it to take up the whole line.
Change the field's width only for the desktop versions of the form.
Drag the lines in the order you want them to be displayed on mobile.

5. Save changes.

4. Add custom fields

Add custom fields to your checkout to collect additional information from your customers, for example, answers to a survey or additional properties for the order. You can also transfer a custom field as a standard address field.

Checkify supports the following five custom field types:

Email
Dropdown
Phone
Number
Text

Checkify transfers the data from the custom fields to the Additional details section of your order on Shopify.

Custom field data in the order’s additional details on Shopify

To create a custom field:

At the top of the left menu, create a new field (+).
Choose the type of a custom field.
Edit the label text.
Set your placeholder, so that customers do not miss the requirements. Without the placeholder, the customers will see the first option.
Add your field options. Once you create an option, you can edit or delete an option in the same menu.
Save changes.

That’s it. Set the form to "Active" if you create a new form, and your customers will see and fill in the custom fields while checking out.

5. Custom address forms and third-party integrations

We give you the maximum flexibility in address form customization. However, some third-party apps pull specific information from this form and may not work properly with shortened variants.

We highly recommend you test your integrations right after publishing your custom address form.

6. Common issues

🙀 Can I have a separate form for digital products?

Currently, you can customize your form for digital products, but your customers still will see it based on the location you set.

🙀 Can I use third-party integrations that work with address forms?

Yes, third-party integrations that pull data from the address form will work. So, you’ll be able to connect apps that provide delivery options. However, they mostly rely on having all fields in the form, so check what fields are required so that you don’t remove ones the app requires. We also recommend testing your integrations right after publishing your custom address form.

🙀 Can I delete the email field?

Yes, you can. However, in this case, you’ll need to let Shopify identify your customers by their phone number. Go to the Shopify admin panel > Settings > Checkout > Customer contact. Select the option “Customers can check out using either their phone number or email.”