How to enable age check verification

Even though sales for direct-to-consumer shipments are often conducted remotely, making it harder to verify age, no shipper should sell alcohol to minors, even accidentally. Using third-party age verification services at the time of purchase is a great best practice to help prevent sales to minors.

In a few states, the purchaser of direct-to-consumer shipments of alcohol must have their age verified by an approved third-party provider before the shipment is considered compliant. Even when not required, you're able to set up these checks for all states where you do business. ShipCompliant partners with approved age check vendors (LexisNexis and IDology) to automatically check the age of the purchaser, based on the order information you provide.

How age checks work

Age checks use 5 pieces of customer data to verify age: date of birth, name, street address, email, and phone number. When at least 3 out of 5 fields match, ShipCompliant considers the data representative of a person.

Commonly, data may not match if the purchaser recently moved, changed their name, or is not part of the age verification provider’s database.

If the customer data doesn’t match, the purchaser’s age won’t be validated. In this case, you can manually override the age check validation. For more information see the help article, How to manually override age check verifications.

Enabling age check verification

1. In ShipCompliant, go to Settings, then click Account Settings.
2. Click Age Check Settings from the menu on the left-hand side of the page.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Edit your current age check configuration.
   • Click the Enabled radio button.
     
     

4. Select the vendor that will perform the age check. You can choose from two age check vendors in ShipCompliant: LexisNexis or IDology.
5. Review and select your preferred settings:
   • Under State Settings choose from:
     • All states - automatic age checks are performed on all direct-to-consumer orders.
     • Only shipments to states that require age checks - automatic age checks are only performed on the purchaser of orders shipped to states that require age verification.
     • Custom - you choose which states the age checks are performed.
   • Under Manual Age Check Settings choose from:
     • Either enable or disable manual age checks.
     • For more information on this, check out How to manually override age check verifications.
   • Under Sales Type Settings choose from:
     • Offsite orders, or onsite and offsite orders.
       
       
       

       Changes to these settings affect all order entry methods, including file upload, manual order entry, and integrated solutions with 3rd party providers.

6. Read the terms and conditions.
7. Click I acknowledge that I have read the terms and conditions above.
8. Click Agree.
   
   
   
   
9. A banner will appear at the top of the screen indicating age checks are successfully enabled.

Changing your age check vendor

To change your age check provider or settings if you’ve previously enabled age checks, follow these steps:

1. In ShipCompliant, go to Settings, then click Account Settings.
2. Click on Age Check Settings from the menu on the left-hand side of the page.
   
   
   
   

3. Click Edit under Shipment Age Check State Settings.
   
   
   
   
4. Select your preferred vendor and settings as described in the preceding section, Enabling age check verification.