Hi, {{first_name|friend}}. 👋
Welcome to Issue #181 of Loop WP!
Last week, we took a look at what’s coming in WooCommerce 10.2’s Order Fulfillments Beta: Advanced Shipping Management & Tracking.
This week, it’s about a new Address AutoComplete feature in WooCommerce 10.3, and I have a go at extending it!
Let’s go! 👇
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WooCommerce 10.3 - Address Autocomplete
WooCommerce 10.3 dropped last week (we are already on 10.3.3). 🎉
There are lots of new features to get excited about (there’s a detailed link in the “News & Tips” section), but I am most excited about the Address Autocomplete functionality in both block and shortcode checkout.
This feature streamlines the checkout experience by enabling predictive address search, reducing customer friction and improving data accuracy.
When enabled, shoppers can start typing their address and select from validated suggestions, minimising typos, speeding up checkout, and potentially reducing cart abandonment.
🚨 To use it out of the box, you do need to use WooPayments, but WooCommerce also have some handy developer documentation to allow you to create your own solution.
I do have to commend the Woo team for how they handled Google Consent Mode for this:
It uses an Automattic managed proxy that primarily relies to Google, but we don't load any Google scripts or expose customers or merchants to Google directly, beyond the query itself, so Google Consent Mode is irrelevant for us.
Why Am I Excited?
As the saying goes, “better late than never”, right? 🤷♂️
There are third-party plugin providers that have offered Address AutoComplete for years, and Shopify has had this feature built in for eight years!!! 🤦♂️
Yes, if a customer is logged into WooCommerce, their address is pre-filled, but for guest checkouts and the initial checkout completion, this is a big quality-of-life improvement.
Having A Go Myself! 🎉
I don’t want to use WooPayments (yet), and none of my clients do either, so I wanted to see how easy it would be to roll my own solution.
🚨 You don’t have to use Google’s Address Autocomplete, as WooPayments and my solution do, but if you do use my solution, you need to be aware of GDPR and Consent Mode (I’ve accounted for this in the code 😉).
(WooPayments already has this covered.)
😎 I’ve made a Gist with the working code (optional CSS has been inlined and commented out).
✅ I ran into some things to note along the way, building my Address Autocomplete solution for the UK and Ireland:
The Google autocomplete suggestions inherit input ARIA attributes from WooCommerce checkout fields, so you don’t need to add new labels.
You can safely keep your placeholders; Google’s suggestions will appear in the dropdown and not overwrite the field until selected.
For best compliance, ensure the <label> elements for the address fields have for="billing_address_1" etc. (WooCommerce already does this by default).
Using Google Places session tokens is the single most effective way to keep your API costs low (and your checkout fast).
In many GB/IE addresses, locality is empty, and Google supplies the town as postal_town. The code only looked for “locality”, so WooCommerce’s *_city stayed blank while other fields filled fine, so you might need to check for different data ('locality', 'postal_town', 'sublocality', 'sublocality_level_1', 'administrative_area_level_3')
I initially missed Address 2 (subpremise/unit) population, but got that sorted.
Classic Checkout
Remember that developer documentation I mentioned, {{first_name|friend}}?
🥳 I was able to get things working easily enough with the Classic Checkout.
Bonus: This also works with the address fields in “My Account”, so users can easily update billing and shipping addresses.
🫠 I did run into issues making things work with the new Place Autocomplete and didn’t have time to debug for this newsletter.
So if you use my solution or a fork, you will see the console warning:
As of March 1st, 2025, google.maps.places.Autocomplete is not available to new customers.
Please use google.maps.places.PlaceAutocompleteElement instead.
At this time, google.maps.places.Autocomplete is not scheduled to be discontinued, but google.maps.places.PlaceAutocompleteElement is recommended over google.maps.places.Autocomplete.
While google.maps.places.Autocomplete will continue to receive bug fixes for any major regressions, existing bugs in google.maps.places.Autocomplete will not be addressed.
At least 12 months notice will be given before support is discontinued.
The real issues came when I tried to make things work with the Block Checkout. 👇
Block Checkout
Not much to say here. I couldn’t get Address Autocomplete to work! 🫠
This is user error rather than WooCommerce, as I don’t use the Block Editor much, never mind the Block Checkout, so extending functionality just didn’t happen for me.
At least not in time for this newsletter, but it gives me a reason to revisit this in a future newsletter.
🤭 Or I’ll ask James Kemp and Brian Coords very, very nicely to help me fix it.
That’s it for this week! 👋
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Weekly WordPress News & Tips
This week's excellent and insightful WordPress News & Tips:
This was so cool! 😎 - Blocktober Wraps Up as Telex Inspires a Wave of WordPress Experimentation. (The Repository)
Fluent Cart FREE - So Much For Zero Cost! (WPTuts)
WooCommerce 10.3 - COGS comes to core and MCP beta. (WooCommerce)
Duplicate Records - Tracking Record Divergence with Content Hashing. (Tom Cafferkey)
Agency & Freelancing - How Efficiency Helps Your Agency Grow. (The WP Minute)
WordPress Product Advice - Matt Cromwell on preparing WordPress products for a changing demographic and AI revolution. (WP Builds)
The Accordion Block is Coming - Styling accordions in WordPress 6.9 (WordPress)
Misleading & Inflating - WordPress Foundation and WooCommerce Join Countersuit Against WP Engine. (The Repository)
This is Handy! 🎨 - Every website needs a brand assets page. (Progress Planner)
ABC Stats - Lightweight, privacy-friendly WordPress analytics. (ABC Stats)
We Finally Have the Data - Do Lifetime Licenses Really Cost More to Support? (WP Product Talk)
Claude Code on the web - Is available now in beta as a research preview for Pro and Max users. (Anthropic)
Playground Updates - Things you might have missed about the Playground project over the past few months. (WordPress)
WordCamp Canada 2025 - Fosters Connections Between Generations of WordPress Users. (The Repository)
Input in the Head - Things you didn't know could be a (massive) pagespeed issue 🤷. (Erwin Hofman)
InstaMCP - a WP plugin which can convert your WP site into an MCP server which can be added to ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, etc, with a click of a button (no need to mess with JSON files, etc). (InstaWP)
All Roads lead to Matt - Mapping out all of the moving parts in this tangled web of organisations, trademarks, and influence. (Jono Alderson)
FREE Hosting for WordPress Sites - Turn Any Page Into a FAST Static Site! (WPTuts)
Delay JavaScript - Why does my website get a great Lighthouse / PageSpeed Insights score (0ms TBT!) but it fails Core Web Vitals' INP metric??! (Joshua Clare-Flagg)
The Importance of Transparency - Unlocking the Secrets of Successful Agency Partnerships. (The WP Minute)
“It felt like the right move” - Devin Walker Joins Automattic as Artistic Director for Jetpack. (The Repository)
Major Milestone! 🎉 - Core-AI Contributor Check-in – Oct 22nd, 2025. (WordPress)
If you have a question about this email or WordPress, please reply, and I will respond as soon as possible.
👋 Until next time,
This image is an original illustration created for editorial use. The WooCommerce name and logo are trademarks of Automattic Inc. All trademarks, logos, and brand names are used here for illustrative and commentary purposes only. No affiliation or endorsement is implied.