Shopify Pickup Orders: Why Your Phone Number Field Isn't Always Mandatory (and How to Fix It!)

Hey everyone, your friendly Shopify expert and community analyst here! I recently dove deep into a really interesting, and frankly, frustrating, discussion happening in the Shopify community. It's a classic example of how a seemingly small change can completely derail an efficient workflow, and it highlights some nuances of Shopify's checkout process that every store owner should understand.

The thread, kicked off by @TPELUCHEFACTORY, revolved around a specific head-scratcher: for their French store using Shopify's native Mondial Relay integration for pickup points, the customer phone number field suddenly became optional for pickup orders. This was a huge problem because, as they explained, those phone numbers are absolutely essential for generating shipping labels and ensuring smooth fulfillment. Before, everything was automated; now, it's a manual chase for every missing number. Ugh!

The "Required" Setting That Isn't Always Required?

TPELUCHEFACTORY was understandably confused. They had their delivery phone number set to required in their Shopify admin, yet on the checkout page, for pickup orders, it just wasn't being enforced. This is where the community really started to shine, offering some fantastic insights.

As @lumine pointed out, this often comes down to a critical distinction: the Required toggle you set in your Shopify admin typically applies to the shipping address form. For a pickup point order, the "shipping address" on the order isn't the customer's home address; it's the pickup point location itself! So, the field that setting governs might not even be the field your labels need anyway.

Several members, including @websensepro and @Steve_TopNewYork, echoed the sentiment that the issue likely wasn't directly related to payment processing, even though TPELUCHEFACTORY had recently switched from Stripe to Shopify Payments. However, this payment switch turned out to be a very important clue, albeit for an indirect reason.

The Shop Pay Connection: A Subtle Game-Changer

Here's where @lumine offered a brilliant hypothesis that really resonated: when you move to Shopify Payments, it often enables or emphasizes Shop Pay and other express wallet buttons. Shop Pay is fantastic for speedy checkouts because it pre-fills customer information from their saved Shop profile.

The catch? If a customer's saved Shop profile doesn't have a phone number, or if they're using an express checkout method that bypasses the standard shipping form, that phone field might simply be skipped. It's not that the field isn't there; it's just never presented as mandatory because Shop Pay assumes it already has all the necessary info – or allows the customer to proceed without it if their profile is incomplete. This perfectly explains why the timing lined up with the payment provider change.

The Native Integration Frustration: Who's in Control?

One of the most frustrating parts of TPELUCHEFACTORY's experience was the back-and-forth between Shopify Support and Mondial Relay. Shopify Support suggested it was Mondial Relay's issue, while Mondial Relay stated they don't manage Shopify's side, only receive orders. This is a common pain point when dealing with native integrations – it feels like someone should be in control, but getting a clear answer can be tough.

As @TPELUCHEFACTORY rightly argued, for a *native* Shopify integration, Shopify should indeed have control over how information is collected at checkout. This highlights a gap where the platform's default settings don't quite cover every specific shipping scenario, especially with third-party pickup services.

What You Can Do: Actionable Steps to Reclaim Your Automation

Based on the community's collective wisdom, here are some steps you can take if you're facing a similar problem with missing phone numbers for pickup point orders:

1. Investigate Existing Orders: Where Is the Phone Number Hiding?

• Compare Order Types: Open a recent Mondial Relay pickup order side-by-side with a recent home delivery order in your Shopify admin.
• Check All Fields: For both orders, look closely at the "Shipping address," "Billing address," and the "Customer" record. Is the phone number present in the billing address or on the customer record for pickup orders, even if it's absent from the shipping address?
• The "Cheap Outcome": If the phone number is being collected, but just not on the shipping address field for pickup orders, then nothing is truly "broken" at checkout. Your label generation might just be looking in the wrong place.

2. Adjust Your Label Generation Workflow (If Applicable)

If your investigation reveals the phone number is being collected (e.g., on the billing address or customer record) but your label automation isn't picking it up, you might need to adjust how your labels are generated. This could involve:

• Checking Your Shipping App: If you use a third-party shipping app, review its settings to see if you can specify which field it pulls the phone number from for pickup orders.
• Custom Scripts/Flows: For more advanced setups, you might need a custom script or a more complex Shopify Flow to pull the phone number from the correct location (e.g., customer.phone or billing_address.phone) and add it to the label data.

3. Implement a Shopify Flow Automation (Temporary Safety Net)

Even if you can't force the field to be mandatory, you can create a Shopify Flow to act as a safety net. This free tool lets you:

• Flag Orders: Set up a workflow to flag or tag any order placed via Mondial Relay where the customer.phone field is blank.
• Hold Fulfillment: You could even configure it to put these orders on hold, preventing you from wasting time trying to generate failed labels. This gives you a clear list of orders to follow up on manually.

4. Consider Checkout Customization for Hard Enforcement (Advanced)

If the phone number is genuinely absent everywhere, and you absolutely need it enforced at checkout specifically for pickup orders, @lumine noted that there's "no native toggle that forces a phone specifically on pickup point orders." This would likely require Shopify's Checkout Extensibility and potentially custom validation logic, which may involve a developer and depends on your Shopify plan. This is the most robust, but also the most involved, long-term solution.

5. Re-engage Shopify Support (with More Specifics)

If you've done your investigation, you'll have much more specific information to provide to Shopify Support. Instead of just saying "the phone number isn't mandatory," you can say: "The phone number is missing from the shipping address for Mondial Relay pickup orders, but it's also not appearing in the billing address or customer record. We suspect this is related to Shop Pay bypassing the field." This level of detail can help them pinpoint the issue more effectively.

It's clear from this discussion that while Shopify provides powerful tools, sometimes the devil is in the details of how different features (like native shipping integrations, payment gateways, and checkout settings) interact. Staying engaged with the community and understanding these nuances is key to keeping your store running smoothly. Keep an eye on those checkout flows, especially after any platform changes!