Google Autocomplete improves the checkout experience by making it easier and faster for customers to enter their billing and shipping address. It also helps merchants save time by reducing the number of returned shipments due to incorrect delivery addresses.

Merchants in any location can use Google Autocomplete for Addresses, but currently, only customer addresses in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom are supported.

 

Postcodes will not be autofilled for UK addresses. Customers will need to manually enter in their postcode. This is to avoid incorrect delivery and billing addresses.

 
 

How It Works

When customers arrive at checkout and start entering the first few characters of their address, Google Autocomplete will instantly provide a list of potential matching addresses. Customers select an address and the rest of the fields will be automatically filled. This is especially useful for customers on mobile where checking out on a small screen can be a long exercise in typing, misspelling, and retyping.

Example of address autocomplete

 
 

Requirements

  • Your store must be using Optimized One-Page Checkout.
  • You must have the Manage Settings permission enabled on your user account.
  • You must have a Google account (setup will create a new one if needed).
 
 

Generate a Google Maps API Key

Google Autocomplete is powered by Google Maps and requires a Google Maps API key. Follow the steps below to get your key and add it to the BigCommerce control panel:

1. Use Google's instructions to generate your API key.

2. In your BigCommerce control panel, go to Settings › Checkout.

3. Check the box for Use Google Maps services to autocomplete shipping and billing addresses and enter your Google Maps API Key.

Checkout settings in BigCommerce showing the Google Maps API Key box

4. Save your changes.

 
 

API Key Setup

API keys are credentials, and like passwords, they should be protected and managed carefully. Publicly exposing unsecured Google Maps Platform credentials can result in unintended use, which could lead to unexpected charges on your account.

Below we'll show you how to restrict the use of the API keys to your checkout page to ensure the full functionality of the API key and the security of your API credentials. See Google's API Key Best Practices to learn more.

Edit your API key and make the following changes:

  • Select HTTP referrers (websites) in Application restrictions
  • Enter the URL for your checkout page in the Website Restrictions section
  • Choose Restrict key under API restrictions
  • Add Places API and Maps JavaScript API in Select APIs dropdown.
 

Please Note: If you intend to use the same API key on any other websites, you will also need to list the URLs of those pages. By default, BigCommerce only uses this API key on the checkout page.

 
 

FAQ

Which countries are supported?

Currently, customer addresses in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom are supported.

Is this feature available on all plans?

Yes, it is available to stores across all our plans.

Is it free to use this feature?

No, it is free only up to a certain limit. If you exceed this free usage limit, then you’ll need to pay usage costs to Google.

What is the free usage limit?

Google provides a $200 free monthly credit that equates to 70,000 autocomplete requests per month. See Google's Google Maps Platform Pricing Table, the Places tab and Autocomplete - Per request for more details.

Why do I need to provide billing details when generating a Google Maps API key?

This billing information is used in case you exceed your free usage limits.

Error: "This API project is not authorized to use this API. Please ensure this API is activated in the Google Developers Console."

If you receive this error, you may need to enable the Places API in your Google Developers Console. Go to the Google Developers Console Places backend and click Enable.