Been running my little print shop for about six years and I just discovered the contact form on my site has like four different address fields. Physical, billing, shipping, and some other one labeled 'mailing'. I only ever set up the first one. Should I even bother changing it now or just leave it?
Forms
I didn't realize there were several different address fields on the form
Four is a lot. Have you checked what the form actually collects when someone fills it out? Sometimes the extra fields are inactive or hidden by default.
i had the same issue with my candle business. The billing field getting confused with shipping was causing delays because customers would enter one address and then call asking why the the package was late. I'd honestly look at whether you need all four. Most small shops can get away with just a shipping address and a billing address if you take card payments.
Do you ship physical products? If yes, then yeah, separate the shipping address properly. Otherwise People type their PO box into the wrong field and then you're emailing back and forth.
It's probably a template leftover. I'd just delete the mailing field unless you actually send paper mail.
Not sure I agree with just deleting it. If the form builder won't let you remove fields, you can can usually hide them with a bit of CSS. But then you need to make sure they're not required.
Required is the real problem. If a hidden field is required, the form won't submit. Worth testing with a dummy entry before you change anything.
I don't think this is a huge deal, honestly. If it's been working for for six years, maybe the extra fields are harmless. But you should at least look at where the data goes. Some form plugins just dump everything into the email notification and it gets confusing to read.
Also, check whether the form saves entries somewhere or only sends email. If it saves, then having four address fields may actually make it harder to search for an order later.