Shipping address not allowing PO Box any more

[whitepencil]

I just got a message from a customer for whom I have been shipping orders to a PO Box for a couple of years. Today she said she could not enter in the PO Box details in her order and was forced to enter a street address then message me separate to say please deliver to the PO Box address as usual.

Has an update been made in the past two weeks that is now preventing customers from entering a PO Box address to ship orders to?

[Ellie_]

Hi there, @whitepencil,

That is a great question, and we are happy to look into this for you. Are those customers trying to purchase from a Square Online site, or a payment link? From there, we can investigate this further. 

[whitepencil]

My Square online site:
https://whitepencilonblack.square.site/

[whitepencil]

Was the PO Box validation only recently implemented? As I said, I have been shipping to her PO Box for years till a couple of weeks ago.

[Laurie_]

Hi @whitepencil, just jumping in here with a bit more context!

Totally get why that would be confusing, especially if this has worked for you (and your customer) for years. There hasn’t been a recent update that outright blocks PO Box addresses in Square Online, but what’s likely happening is related to address validation at checkout, and there may have been some changes there that could now be causing these issues for you. Sometimes PO Boxes don’t play nicely with the auto-suggested address feature, which can make it seem like they’re not allowed. In many cases, customers can still enter a PO Box by choosing the manual address entry option if autocomplete doesn’t show it.

Since that doesn't seem to be happening for your customer, are you able to share the specific error message that presents when they try to enter their PO Box? Or can you replicate the error yourself and let us know what you're seeing? We want to be careful not to share any address details if you are sending a screenshot, otherwise typing the error message works too.

I know you've likely already looked into your own settings, but it's always worth double-checking your shipping settings in the Dashboard, just to make sure your shipping profile still covers the customer’s location, as certain configurations can trigger address issues at checkout.