How can I get customer GPS coordinates for efficient delivery?

[nadinemu]

Hello Shopify community!

Here is what I am trying to do, can anyone help?

I have an online grocery store that does at home delivery. Since the address system is very inefficient in my country I am looking for a better solution to find the customer's location. 

I was wondering if there was an app that would allow customers to select their location or to drop a pin instead of typing in their address. This would allow us to know exactly where to go, instead of calling the customer every time. 

Thank you in advance for your help!

Best regards,

Nadine from Mauritius

[Lulu · Accepted solution]

Hey, @nadinemu!

Lulu here from the Shopify Support team. Thanks for reaching out here, and I'll be more than happy to help you out.

I can totally see where you are coming from especially with home deliveries. Unfortunately, as the customer enters their shipping address at the checkout and while an app would be great to drop a pin or similar, no customisations can be done to the checkout at all unless you are on the Shopify Plus plan. 

There isn’t actually the ability to edit the code for the checkout by anyone. The primary reasons behind not being able to edit the checkout CSS are around security, responsiveness, and maintaining PCI compliance. If we had customized checkouts, any updates or improvements that we wanted to make would have to be made on a store-by-store basis. As you can imagine, this would take a very long time! It would also make the customer suffer if the checkout was then glitchy/not updated correctly.

We still allow you to customize your checkout style (as noted in this guide), such as changing the colours and adding a banner to the top of the checkout page. However, ultimately these systems are in place with the primary focus of making our platform more secure for you and your customers. We hope you understand that it’s with your best interest at heart.

There is an option to autofill the shipping address though which may be handy to help customers pick the exact address at the checkout? It gives customers address suggestions when they enter their shipping and billing address. You can toggle that option on by clicking Settings > Checkout > "Enable address autocompletion".

I hope this helps but let me know if you have any other questions at all, always happy to help!

Kind regards, 

Lulu

[nadinemu]

Thank you!!!!

[Lulu]

You are very welcome, @nadinemu. If you ever need anything else, please don't hesitate to get back in touch!

All the best,

Lulu

[gsantizo]

Hi Lulu, 

I have the same situation @nadinemu mentioned. Our country addresses are not standardized and is difficult to translate addresses into coordinates for our routing planning software.

You mentioned Shopify Plus would allow checkout customization. Do you know a feature like 'map for customers to pin point their location and confirm address' would be something feasible under this plan? 

Many thanks,

[gsantizo]

Hi @Lulu , 

I have the same situation @nadinemu mentioned. Our country addresses are not standardized and is difficult to translate addresses into coordinates for our routing planning software.

You mentioned Shopify Plus would allow checkout customization. Do you know a feature like 'map for customers to pin point their location and confirm address' would be something feasible under this plan? 

Many thanks,

[Omer_Shafiq]

Hi @gsantizo,

We also run an online store and offer nationwide deliveries in Pakistan. We faced a similar problem where customers sometimes enter invalid addresses, making it difficult to identify their location. As a developer, I built a custom solution for our website to simplify location selection for customers.

We added a dropdown for customers to choose their city, town, and then their exact location. When a customer enters their pinned location, we retrieve the coordinates and store them in the order notes, which are then linked to the Shopify order invoices.

I’m sharing some images below. If you’re familiar with development, I can share the code repository and explain in detail how you can

integrate this feature into your website. Have a look:  

[davidbg]

Hi @nadinemu , I sympathize with your problem. I also live in a country where having the right delivery addresses is a problem. You could try and use an app like Wayfinder. The app lets you obtain customer delivery coordinates by letting you embed a map on your site for customers to pin drop their delivery locations. You could easily set it up by:
Steps:
1. You must have a Google Cloud account and generate your own API Key, the app will use this to enable the Google Maps on your site. 
2. You can place the Map anywhere on your site, excluding the checkout, using the Theme Editor. I recommend using the cart page or a custom built page. If you are using the cart page, the app provides an optional feature that lets you disable the Checkout button if a customer has not pinned a location. 
3. You can publish your edited theme and start obtaining their gps coordinates. They will be stored as notes in your order details when a customer completes their purchases. 
Hope this solves your problem! Thank you 🙂

[Anshad__]

Hi @nadinemu,

Try Pinpointly Location Finder  to easily add location selection widgets to your Shopify store. Customers can pinpoint their exact delivery location on a map, with the details automatically added to your order sheet. The app offers a free plan, so you can test it out risk-free!

Features:

• Simple Google Maps API integration
• Seamless Shopify theme customization
• Enhanced customer experience with precise location selection
• Free plan available