What Are the Benefits of Using ECommerce Address Validation?
All eCommerce businesses need their customers’ delivery addresses to carry on with their day-to-day work. One minor typo or misspelling can stop them from completing their orders in the specified time. So, what can these companies do to avoid these problems? The answer is simple—use eCommerce address validation!
It is quite common for customers to make mistakes while filling out an eCommerce form. And it can cause several delivery failures, lost items, misplacements, etc.
But can you afford these errors?
Probably not! The cost to reship a product to customers can hamper your profit margin and keep you from growing your business.
An eCommerce address validation solution like PosGrid can help manage your customer’s delivery data efficiently and ship to the correct destinations!
This blog highlights the significance of automated address verification services for eCommerce businesses to let you make an informed choice. Let’s begin!
What Does ECommerce Address Validation Mean?
Consider this quote by Kevin Stirtz-
“Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet.”
Learning your customer’s requirements is a sure-shot way to increase sales and revenue. Using address validation for eCommerce shipping activities is an excellent method to make your customer’s buying journey more convenient and quick!
But what does eCommerce address validation mean?
It refers to verifying every delivery address before shipping orders! This process helps customers complete their transactions effortlessly and allows you to mail accurately.
Businesses use address verification API like PostGrid to take a customer’s inputted information and cross-check it against an authoritative database. If there are some errors, this automated solution can modify them instantly and help companies proceed with their order fulfillment.
Also Read: International Address Verification
Types of ECommerce Address Validation Solutions
You may incorporate several eCommerce address validation types, like
- Drop-down verification: It allows customers to enter a few characters or words and get a list of suggestions. There are separate fields for the street name, city, state, and country. Users can select the appropriate option from the drop-down menu and proceed ahead. It saves time and effort, enabling them to complete the checkout process faster.
- Partial verification: This eCommerce address validation service only verifies a part of the customer’s address. Visitors must enter their ZIP code—and the API automatically populates the city and state fields. They need to type in the remaining details manually.
- Post-entry eCommerce address validation: This delivery data verification type is less popular because it is time-consuming. It prompts the customer to enter their address in the appropriate field. Then, a pop-up with relevant suggestions appears on the screen, requiring the user to select the correct option. The post-entry eCommerce address validation method can be daunting and slow even though it helps record the accurate destination.
- Type-ahead verification: Type-ahead address checking is the fastest way to validate a customer’s address! This address validation for the eCommerce mailing solution shows users a list of possible suggestions within a few keystrokes. The more data they input, the more accurate these suggestions become! Customers can select one option, and the API auto-populates everything!
- Single-line address validation: Integrating inline address lookup improves your website’s UX and boosts customer satisfaction. It simplifies eCommerce address forms and makes the site look more professional and user-friendly!
Different websites offer unique eCommerce address validation types, depending on customer preferences. The goal is to provide them with advanced solutions that make them stay on the site and finish their transactions!
Also Read: Ecommerce Checkout: Best Practices to Increase Conversions
What Are the Benefits of Using ECommerce Address Validation?
Increasing competition, rising customer expectations, higher demand, etc., demand businesses to use eCommerce address validation services. But there are many more reasons and benefits of employing such solutions in their workflows, like
Speed Up Checkout Process
Nearly, 27.8% of customers purchase products from online shops to speed up the checkout process. Businesses must consider such preferences and provide buyers with eCommerce address validation solutions to help them place orders quickly.
Remember that customers might switch to your competitor’s websites within seconds if your site is not user-friendly or works slowly. Employing address validation for eCommerce companies helps you set yourself apart from the crowd and invite people to visit you more often.
Increase Website Conversions
The average shopping cart abandonment rate ranges between 56% and 81%. The top reasons for customers to leave a website without buying something are
- Lengthy checkout process
- Complicated address form
- Bad UX
- High shipping charges, etc.
An address validation for eCommerce API helps you solve most of these problems, enabling you to boost conversions.
Improve Deliverability Ratios
It is hard to guarantee accurate order deliveries to the customers’ correct addresses without an active eCommerce address validation solution on your website.
These automated address validation for eCommerce services empower you to cross-verify every address against the USPS’s database. For example, PostGrid uses CASS-certified files to help you access accurate addresses in no time. We also offer a 99.99% deliverability rate, ensuring you do not get mail returns.
Save Postage and Increase Revenue
An eCommerce address validation API helps you avoid reshipping products to customers because it costs a lot of money and effort. Here’s how:
- USPS does not take responsibility for your items if they get lost because you mentioned an incorrect address. Unless you choose a mailing service that provides insurance, your company bears the total costs.
- Reshipping something requires you to buy additional materials for packaging the products again, compelling you to spend on perishables.
- Companies must pay the postage again to reship the products because the postal services do not adjust the service fee.
You can prevent these problems by employing eCommerce address validation and helping USPS to mail your packages accurately!
Add Missing Details
Customers may forget to enter their landmarks more often than you think. Some people also do not recall their ZIP codes correctly. The result? Incorrect address entries that result in failed deliveries! Thankfully, eCommerce address verification curbs the effects by adding the missing location data to your mailing lists.
It also helps you enrich your databases with additional information, making it easier for a carrier to reach the destination address.
This feature allows businesses to verify their existing mailing lists. They can install PostGrid’s address validation for eCommerce software and process their databases speedily and efficiently.
PostGrid ensures your databases are ready for use by enhancing your customer entries. You can use these accurate and updated details for many purposes, like data mapping.
Conduct Data-Driven Marketing Campaigns
You may plan and execute a data-driven advertising campaign using an eCommerce address validation API or software program.
- They allow you to record precise customer details to help send marketing mailers. It enables you to retain more customers and generate higher revenue.
- The eCommerce address validation solution makes sending coupons, postcards, letters, etc., easier to improve customer retention rates.
- Drive engagement and responses by personalizing items according to the customer’s location.
Boost Customer Experience
The first thing people see on your website is its design. But they stay for the functionalities and convenience! Using eCommerce address validation to cut short the checkout processes impacts customer experience positively.
It creates an excellent first impression and urges customers to come back!
People like getting these mailers from brands they shop with and save the items as references for future shopping. You may also improve the customer experience by sending thank-you for your business notes, letters, etc., to their correct mailing addresses. Effective address validation for eCommerce solutions like PostGrid helps you achieve multiple objectives like these simultaneously.
Identify Spam Addresses
E-commerce businesses get many fake orders using spam US mailing addresses. Such cases cause many hardships for a company and lead to losses.
They can use address validation for eCommerce shipping and spot such orders instantly. It helps them avoid shipping products to spam addresses, saving money, time, and effort.
Standardize Your Mailing Addresses
Using the correct address format while mailing something via USPS is essential. Otherwise, the Post Office might return your items and instruct you to make the necessary corrections.
Standardizing addresses in-house can take days and weeks of your staff’s time, making eCommerce address validation a life-saver for companies. They can prevent hassles, streamline shipping tasks, and help postal workers deliver their items on time!
Improve Brand Credibility
Customers trust companies that fulfill their orders on time. They think of these businesses as legitimate and continue buying from them.
A report shows that 76% of customers stop purchasing from a company after only two bad experiences. You cannot risk your credibility by not verifying mailing lists beforehand to prevent delivery failures. PostGrid’s eCommerce address validation can allow you to maintain your reputation and gain your audience’s trust.
Also Read: Direct Mail for Retail and eCommerce
More About PostGrid’s ECommerce Address Validation Services
PostGrid offers many address verification solutions, like autocompleting and standardizing addresses. Here is a case study of how we help one of our eCommerce clients verify 6,000+ addresses monthly and leave their competitors behind
The requirement:
Our client required an eCommerce address validation solution to block incorrect addresses from entering their system. They wanted to incorporate these services into their website to spot issues instantly and modify them.
Their current order volume was nearly 6,200 monthly. And they had difficulty choosing a suitable bulk address verification service provider for their business.
How PostGrid tackled the client’s needs:
Our address validation for eCommerce shipping solutions is well-equipped to handle bulk API requests. PostGrid enabled the client to run a large-volume address check on their customers’ addresses in one go—without any slowdowns or glitches.
The client could process their orders more confidently and conveniently after the eCommerce address validation was complete!
PostGrid enabled them to integrate our API into their website to conduct type-ahead and real-time eCommerce address validation activities.
We also offered other features, including
- Fuzzy matching: PostGrid’s eCommerce address validation solutions enabled the client to resolve errors like improper capitalization, spacing mistakes, misspelled words, swapped letters or characters, typos, etc. It helped improve the data quality and improve deliverability.
- Secondary address units: USPS expects senders to mention details, like the street directional, apartment number, floor, etc. But, customers might forget to type these elements on the website. PostGrid’s address validation for eCommerce solutions allowed the client to add internal units to every address—helping USPS deliver items to the correct destinations speedily.
- Geocoding: It helped the client capture a customer’s rooftop address, ensuring they could send the products to the correct addresses. We also offer to geocode for eCommerce address validation to let them encode a delivery address from the geographical coordinates of a place.
- NCOA checking: Our eCommerce address validation solutions help you cross-check your mailing lists against the NCOA database. It lets you replace old addresses with new ones if some of your customers have moved recently.
- Flexible pricing: We offer several plans based on the client’s requirements and budgets. This eCommerce company started with a free demo with us. But they now use our Enterprise plan that is apt for bulk address verification.
Also Read: Ecommerce CRO: “X” Conversion Rate Optimization Tips + Tricks to Drive More Sales
Conclusion
Companies need eCommerce address validation for various reasons, including marketing, sending invoices, retaining customers, improving brand image, etc. It is a must-have tool that lets them offer high-quality services and convert more prospects.
PostGrid helps companies of all sectors improve their data quality and update it frequently. Sign up now to learn more about how our eCommerce address validation solutions enable you to optimize checkouts and boost sales!
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