For some reason the Magento checkout sets the “Ship to different address” as the default option even though far more people actually want items delivered to their billing address. This quick tutorial explains how to change this default.

The first stage in making this change is to override the default Magento class that handles the checkout. You do his by simply copying the class file from the core folder into the local code folder.

cp app/code/core/Mage/Checkout/Block/Onepage/Billing.php app/code/core/Mage/Checkout/Onepage

All you then need to do is edit your new version of the file and change the function that sets the default. Change the code below…

public function isUseBillingAddressForShipping()
{
   if (($this->getQuote()->getIsVirtual())
      || !$this->getQuote()->getShippingAddress()->getSameAsBilling()) {
         return false;
   }
   return true;
}

This content needs to be changed to the following…

public function isUseBillingAddressForShipping()
{
   if (($this->getQuote()->getIsVirtual())
      || !$this->getQuote()->getShippingAddress()->getSameAsBilling()) {
         return true;
   } else {
         return false;
   }
}

And that should be it. The only thing to be careful of is when you upgrade you will need to check there are no changes to the core version of this file. If there are you will need to go through this process again to ensure you are using the latest and correct code.