How can I add an age verification step at checkout for my online alcohol store?

Topic summary

An Australian alcohol retailer needs to implement date-of-birth verification at checkout to comply with liquor licensing laws, which require age verification at the point of sale agreement (checkout), not just a pop-up warning.

Available Solutions:

  • Shopify Plus: Allows editing checkout.liquid to add custom age verification, but costs ~$2000 USD/month—prohibitively expensive for small businesses
  • Third-party apps: Multiple age verification apps exist in the Shopify App Store, but most only offer pop-ups rather than checkout integration
  • Workarounds: Suggestions include repurposing the “company name” field at checkout to collect birth dates, though this doesn’t enforce proper date formatting

Recent Developments:

Shopify Checkout Extensibility now enables app blocks that can be added to checkout without Shopify Plus. One solution mentioned verifies government-issued IDs (including AU/NZ licenses and passports) and can apply minimum age restrictions with white-label customization.

Key Challenge:

Compliance requires not just verification but also storing age data with purchase records. Many existing solutions fail to meet regulatory requirements for age-restricted products (alcohol, tobacco, vaping), leaving small businesses struggling to find affordable, legally compliant options without upgrading to expensive enterprise plans.

Summarized with AI on November 6. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.

Hi there,
You can easily add age verification popup without messing up with the theme using Agefence’s age verification popup.
It will come with a price of latte but it’ll save you tons. and it has unlimited design customizations.
Just try out with 5 day free trial - https://apps.shopify.com/agefence
Learn more at https://appiers.com/agefence