Client checkout shipping location via map pin or something like that in countries without addresses?

[Yannick_Richard]

Hey there, I'd like to setup a shopify storefront here in Costa Rica, but I'm having a hard time with the checkout process.

Costa Rica doesn't have standardized addresses, and often times adresses are something along the lines of:
125m west of the church, the main road, town name, province. And Google Maps NEVER recognizes an address down here. Everybody finds each other by sharing pins on Whatsapp or sharing locations on Waze/Google maps.

That doesn't really make it easy for us to figure out where people really live as then the delivery guy, usually on a moped or motorcycle, has to call the customer and figure out with him verbally where they are.

So I had this great idea of using a Google Maps pin as a delivery location that we could then print out, or simply give the coordinates to the driver which he can look up on Google Maps easily.

But I searched around and can't seem to find something like this that exists.

How could I make it so that the customer checking out has to click on a location on a map to give us their delivery location rather than using the conventional address system like we use in north america?

Even if I had to pay someone to potentially develop this, is it actually possible? I don't know how much of the checkout process can be modified through third party apps.

I know many shops would LOVE to hop on shopify here if there was some easier way to figure out customer delivery location as right now ecommerce is not really big down here but I see massive potential.

[Don_old]

Hi there Yannick!

My name is John and I'm a Guru here at Shopify!

Thanks for taking the time to post here on our merchant forums about your requirements in Costa Rica. 🙂

As you suspect yourself, the checkout area is off limits for customisation like this as the code is locked down for security reasons.

However, we can still take your feedback into account here by filing a feature request internally with our developer team.

While we can't promise a timeline on the introduction of any feature; we do rely on reports like this from engaged merchants such as yourself to learn how people do business in various markets, so thanks for this insight. 

I'll write up the particulars of your requirements for Costa Rica and file that request for our dev team.

As someone who lives in a country with a lot of these 'unique addresses' I feel your pain! 🙂

Let us know if you need us here at Shopify support in future.

Regards,

John

[Ahmad_J]

Hello Both, 

Greetings,
Many thanks Yannick to bring this issue up, and Many thanks to John for your response.

I am having the same problem here in Saudi Arabia shipping and delivery are rely heavily on sharing pin through whatsapp or SMS, if the checkout process can be modified to have the Google map which then can be combined with the customer details. This really will increase the sales of shopify not only in Saudi Arabia and Costa Rica but many developing countries as well.

BR,
Ahmad

[ajaroudi]

Hi, just a quick question... is this service available now?

[martinhalik]

Hello guys,

just recently I have developed something similar for Meat shop in Abu Dhabi. Since you can't edit checkout process, I've implemented the map on the cart page and passed coordinates as checkout attribute to shopify order. UX is little worse, but it might work for you in the end.

Screenshot:

Live version (real store, plz be nice):
https://lacarne.ae/

[cynthiagw]

Hi Martin,

could you please provide source code for this cart or at least create a tutorial. It would be super helpful 🙂

[martinhalik]

It's all Javascript, you can find the code in the source code. I published the basics for you here https://bitbucket.org/martinhalik/map-for-cart-shopify/src/master/

Let me know whether it helps.

[cynthiagw]

Hey,
I know I may sound like a rookie but maybe what I needed help on was how to
tie location to calculate shipping costs and where exactly you placed this
code.

[martinhalik]

It did not connect it with shipping costs (that's a place for improvement) and I've inserted code into file cart-template.liquid

[PESKYstuff]

Hey man, as a tico who moved down there in 2017, I can assure you it wont work. I moved back to the US because of it. 

The system is antiquated in CR, and the mail system is some of the worst in the world due to exactly what you said, no real address system in place.

Just forget about even putting the effort in to finding a solution.

Whats worse is, even shipping to the US is a pain, takes 14-25 days to arrive, most my stuff was stolen by shady customs people, then there's receiving mail, which, as im sure youve found out, they arbitrarily charge you whatever tax they want to at customs, It's just s shtshow down there. Absolute 3rd world postal system. 

I ended up shipping my inventory back to the US and having my sister help me shipping stuff out, and costa rican sales, I just did hand to hand meeting up at the central park in whatever town someone wanted something from me in. THATS the only solution I found, and after 2 years of living there, I got fed up, my business took a nosedive because of it, so I left. I now just visit whenever I want but live in the states again.

Also, if you are not a citizen, and you're caught doing something like that..."running a business without going through the proper channels" it's illegal and THEY WILL BAN YOU from the country. Trust me, My friend was caught selling merch in Jaco, a cop placed and order, met up with him, he was booted and never allowed back into CR. So use caution, they dont play games when it comes to you earning a living as a foreigner down there. THEY DO NOT WANT YOU TAKING TICO MONEY UNLESS YOU ARE A TICO. 

Best of luck to you, but shopify will NOT ever work for you down there. 

[Ana18]

Hello!

Could you explain how to automatically fill the address in checkout with coordinates you retrieved from the map?

Thank you,

Ana

[martinhalik]

I have changed via Javascript the button permalink. And then you use these parameters: https://help.shopify.com/en/themes/customization/cart/use-permalinks-to-preload-cart

[Kamal_Moha]

Hey guys, I'm in Uganda(Africa) and I also greatly face this issue of not being able to locate the people who have made an order on the Website as the Address system is bad here.
But being able to auto-populate Road/Street Address from Google maps is something very useful.
It will super awesome if there is a way to integrate Google Maps & Shopify so that you can easily locate your customer and quickly deliver his product to his House.

This is something very important for everybody using Shopify and I would love to get anyone's help on this issue.

[bogdangodzenko]

martinhalik thanks a lot for your great example. 
Have you seen some other examples of implementing this feature? 

[Vincinerate]

Hi, martinhalik,

Saw your shop's cart, nicely done. I also wanted this geolocation to work in my checkout page because from where I'm, address is a challenge. 

I went through your javascript & tried to edit the codings in my theme, didn't quite work out, its a Supply theme from shopify. Can you further advise on this? Thanks

[jeperaltag]

Hi. How does to it cost add to my shop this add-on. I live in Panama and need to  know the location of my customer at the shopping cart. You can contact me at jeperaltag@gmail.com and see my store at https://foodmar.me

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@martinhalik wrote:

Hello guys,

just recently I have developed something similar for Meat shop in Abu Dhabi. Since you can't edit checkout process, I've implemented the map on the cart page and passed coordinates as checkout attribute to shopify order. UX is little worse, but it might work for you in the end.

Screenshot:

Live version (real store, plz be nice):
https://lacarne.ae/

---

[dankykk]

Hi Martin I am interested in that solution of the map before checkout.
How can I contact you?

[martinhalik]

You can reach me at agency e-mail shopify@soundsgood.agency or directly via martin@ents.co, but in both options, I do this work under the Soundsgood Agency brand.

[leebasky]

This will be very useful for Ghana (West Africa) where address is best given via google maps/whatsapp coordinates*. Please help.