Disable Billing address Collection on Checkout

[Tom_Murphy]

Hi There, 
we sell services on our store (so no physical delivery).

Our checkout requires the customer to enter their billing address. Can we disable this requirement? When people pay by credit card, we have had lots of feedback that our customers only want to enter in the:

• name on card
• credit card number
• expiry date
• CVC

They find the current checkout cumbersome having to enter an address.  They also wonder why we are collecting this information - which also reduces conversion. 

If someone can help, that would be really appreciated.

Thanks !

TM

PS We have also enabled express checkout with Paypal and Google Pay

[Nick · Accepted solution]

Hi @Tom_Murphy,

Nick here from Shopify. 

Really good question and I can completely see where you're coming from. You can edit aspects of the address collection on checkout, but it's not possible to completely disable or remove it. 

You can shorten the amount of an address someone adds in by removing the second address line. The help guide can be read in full here. I will also submit this as a feature request on your behalf as I can see how this would benefit your business since you are only selling digital products. 

All the best, Nick

[HenrySheykin]

Hi Nick 

Is there a way to avoid filling in the billing address if I distribute free digital downloads?

Henry

[Nick]

Hi @HenrySheykin,

Good question but the same concept would still apply as I mentioned above regardless if the product is digital or physical. It's not possible to completely remove the address aspect of the checkout if a product is digital, free or otherwise. I took a screenshot from my test store to show there is no possible way to remove this from the settings of the admin: 

It's only possible to remove/hide the address line 2 as highlighted above. 

[Tim92]

Hi Nick

Is it possible to remove all the billing address options on debut theme if can code it out myself?

I'm selling a pdf and the only thing i want to collect is their email. I'm using Stripe and i know professional websites only need email + credit card details to do the checkout so it should in theory be able in Shopify as well? I'm actually quite surprised a billion dollar company does not have this feature..

Tim

[Nick]

Hi @Tim92,

That's a good question. I double-checked with the themes team on this for you. They mentioned that unless you're on Shopify Plus you won’t be able to edit checkout files which is what you'd need to do to remove billing. Even if the product is completely free, this section would still need to be filled out. 

Either way, this is something I would advise against doing as a small mistake could have big implications for the store. Editing code is something that's not in my wheelhouse personally so I wouldn't be able to go into specifics on that. 

[PrismInvestors]

I would really like this option. It seems absurd for me to have to pay for $79 a month Shopify subscription just to disable the billing address for selling digital goods. This needs to be a native option. Customers do not like having to fill in all this personal info for something paid online and super basic. 

[rkszn]

Hello, I would like to edit the checkout files to avoid the user's entering billing info. I am a Shopify Plus member. Can you please let me know how exactly to do this?

[Nick]

Hi @rkszn,

To edit the checkout once on the Shopify Plus plan in the checkout.liquid file. There is an overview of the checkout.liquid file here and some best practices for editing it here. 

[noui]

the kind of answer that makes you quit Shopify for BIG COMMERCE, WOO COMMERCE or WIX.

[CSF_Robert1]

+1

I'm also selling digital products (stock video) and giving away a freebie video each month. This is a feature i would really like to see added - the ability to blank out billing address fields, so customer doesn't have to fill them in.

I want to make checkout as simple as possible for my free products, but by forcing folks to fill in address fields is only going to lead to confusion, irritation and abandoned carts. 

Please add this feature!

[Imogen]

Hey there, @CSF_Robert1! Thanks for taking the time to follow up on this thread!

I've gone ahead and flagged your use case here for our Developers! I can't outline specifically what may result from the feedback you've shared with us here, but I've gone ahead and made sure that the appropriate teams here at Shopify are aware of your post and this thread in order to inform their decisions around any future updates. Thanks again for your feedback! It's feedback that helps keeping moving Shopify towards being the best version of itself that it can be!

[Dmitry85]

Does that mean that developers will do anything about it? 

[Imogen]

Hi, @Dmitry85! Thanks for the question!

I can't say specifically what our Developers may do as a result of some increased awareness around this feature request but I have taken the steps to make sure they're aware of the value this functionality would bring to merchants. I recommend keeping an eye on our changelog for any mentions of this being tweaked or updated in the future. 

[Suresh722]

Hey Nick,

Just wondering if there has been any updates regarding the billing address requirement? Are we allowed to completely disable this?

[sightsizesupply]

Hello Nick, Following up this feature request. I’m new to Shopify. The friction of having to enter a billing address for FREE digital downloads, and inability to disable them is close to a deal breaker. 

[Jennypto]

Did we have an answer for being able to disable billing adress for free downloads?

[Marcheses]

Bumping this question.  We also have free products.

[shopafly]

Agreed. This would be great. Please advise a simple way to do this!

[atis]

Hi,

Any updates on this issue of billing address?
Have customers that do pick up or digital goods ... and find it annoying and time wasting to fill in always billing address.

Hope there is an update and solution for this issue.
Just like some other platforms.

thanks

[Dwhiteside]

We too would find this useful!

[TheBoatGalley]

I'd love to be able to disable the billing address when it's a free order. I "sell" freebies in my store in addition to paid products and when the order is free, it really irks customers that they have to provide an address (the products are digital)

[Dmitry85]

You won't be able to disable Billing address. We've tried a lot. Talked to Shopify support a lot. The funny thing is that Shopify Payments are "Powered by Stripe", which is essentially Stripe. When you use Stripe, you can have checkout with no billing address. But Shopify told us "We need this because of our system architecture". So, it's essentially Shopify not wanting to allow this feature for their own reasons.

There was a solution for Shopify Plus before (which expires tomorrow as you won't be able to edit Checkout Liquid) - you could fill it in with a random address and hide it, but that is going to stop being possible with the new Checkout Shopify has rolled out.