How can I request customers to use Latin characters for addresses at checkout?

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment

Topic summary

A merchant seeks to reduce manual verification work by requesting customers use Latin characters when entering shipping addresses at checkout, as they currently contact every customer who uses non-Latin alphabets.

Available Solutions:

  • Manual note approach: Shopify allows adding instructional text next to the shipping address field (tutorial video provided), though this doesn’t prevent customers from proceeding with non-Latin characters

  • Enforcement apps: Two apps offer blocking functionality:

    • LatinLock: Prevents checkout completion if non-Latin characters are detected in shipping fields
    • Glovokai: Provides both AI auto-translation and optional character blocking

Important consideration: One respondent notes that blocking certain character sets (like Japanese) may not be recommended, as customers might prefer or need to use their native scripts.

The discussion remains open with no consensus on best practices for balancing operational efficiency with customer experience.

Summarized with AI on October 30. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Is there a way to put a section on the checkout page that asks customers to use Latin characters for their addresses?

We reach out to every customer who uses a different alphabet in their address in order to verify the translated shipping address. We would like to bypass this in any way possible. Any insight on this is greatly appreciated.

2

For those still looking for an answer to this, Shopify provides a way to add a note at checkout next to the section where buyers enter their shipping address. You can use this feature to request that buyers only enter Latin characters due to fulfillment issues. There’s a YouTube video that explains exactly how to do this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDFGLmA-Sjg

However, this will not stop the buyer from completing the checkout process and making the purchase even if their address contains non-Latin characters.

To only allow checkout to complete if there are no invalid characters in any of the shipping fields, check out this app:

https://apps.shopify.com/latinlock

YouTube Vid:

https://youtu.be/8UdnqKvOZ8o

It’s a simple and customizable app that blocks the checkout process if an address contains non-Latin characters.

3

Hi there!

Glovokai can handle both AI auto translation, and if you want, it can also block addresses based on latin characters. It’s not recommended to block e.g. Japanese characters since your customers might prefer or need to input them that way.
https://apps.shopify.com/glovokai

Hope this helps!