What is Ecommerce Address Validation, and why is it the must-have tool for ecommerce businesses?
What is ecommerce address validation, and how can you use it to improve the customer experience and reduce costs for your small business? This article explains how ecommerce address verification works and why it's the must-have tool for your online store.
Delivery is the final step in a customer's online shopping experience, and it directly impacts customer satisfaction.
When an item delivery is delayed or doesn't show up, it causes more than a single unhappy moment for a customer. Frustration, bad reviews and damage to long-term loyalty can result from a parcel not being delivered – having a lasting impact on your revenue.
In fact, research conducted last year, 85% of online shoppers said that a poor delivery experience would prevent them from ordering from that online retailer again.
To ensure items are delivered correctly and to create a great customer experience, you need to know the shipping address entered is correct in the first place. Simple, right?
But customers can make mistakes. As they rush through the online checkout process, it's easy to type in their address incorrectly. The problems this causes go beyond delivery errors and delays for the customer – it can cause lasting problems for your online business.
That's where ecommerce address validation can help.
Let's explore how ecommerce address validation works and why it is the must-have tool for every ecommerce business.
Ecommerce address validation is a way to determine if the customer address on the order details is correct and deliverable.
It helps ensure the customer enters a complete and valid address.
You might be wondering why this is necessary at all – after all, how can customers get their own address wrong?
There are many reasons why customers may enter an incorrect address on your delivery page. The simplest one is that they make a typo – it's easy to switch a couple of digits in the house number.
But not all online orders will be shipped to the customer's own address. Perhaps they're sending a gift to a friend and make a mistake with the address.
Whatever the reason, the wrong address can cause substantial problems for your small business — and the more often it happens, the worse the issues will be.
Ecommerce address verification requires an ecommerce address validation API -- an interface that enables different apps and software programs to connect, share, and process authorised data – in this case, customer addresses.
The ecommerce address validation API can be integrated into the ecommerce website to verify addresses instantly.
When the customer enters their address into the shipping or checkout page of an ecommerce website, the ecommerce address validation API automatically checks it against official address databases to verify the entered address.
Loqate goes further and prefills the address field as the customer is typing. This boosts the accuracy of your ecommerce customer data while reducing checkout time for the customer, improving their shopping experience with your brand.
The number one reason for ecommerce address validation is to ensure the successful delivery of the item and make the customer happy.
Let's break it down:
You have to offer a positive customer experience from purchase to order fulfilment through to delivery.
Shipping is the final step in the customer experience and can be a strong point of differentiation for your brand – if you get it right.
Customers expect they'll receive the items they ordered online on time. But inaccurate addresses can cause delays with item deliveries, cause items to be returned to you or, worse, items never show up at the right location and go missing entirely.
This frustrates your customers, which can cause complaints. But beyond this, it can mean you lose customers. With the chance of losing future customers – dissatisfied customers will leave bad reviews, which can negatively influence other people's decision to buy from your store.
Ecommerce address validation can speed up delivery. According to Australia Post, a parcel with the correct address will spend one day less in the network before it arrives at its destination.
Faster delivery means happier customers. The same research revealed that delivery delays can cause the NPS (net promoter score) to drop by two points. If you can help customers enter the correct address, you'll improve customer relationships with your brand.
There are many extra fees and costs associated with delivering your products to the wrong address.
When a customer's shipping address is entered incorrectly, you waste money sending it to the wrong address. Added to this is the cost of returning the item to you, repackaging and sending it to the correct address.
You might also face the costs of lost items and paying for a replacement to be delivered. If you have a high-value item or it happens repeatedly, this expense can make a considerable dent in your profit margins.
Prevention is the best way to save money. With ecommerce address validation, you can validate the address and ensure the delivery is sent correctly the first time, every time.
Ecommerce address validation saves valuable time and resources.
Verifying and prefilling their address saves your customers time as they are speeding through the checkout, which improves the user experience with your site.
It also saves manual work and stress for your business. You can save time on chasing deliveries, answering complaints, and organising returned items and redeliveries. Instead, you can focus on making your customer experience even better.
Long, complex checkout processes are the bane of a customer's shopping experience. According to research,
Every element of your checkout process adds up and makes a big difference to the overall experience. Therefore, ecommerce stores should always look for ways to streamline their checkout and optimise conversions.
That's where integrating an ecommerce address verification API into your checkout page can help.
An ecommerce address verification API improves the user experience and checkout speed, which can reduce cart abandonment, increase conversion rates and build customer loyalty. The easier the shopping experience is, the more likely users will come back and spend more.
An address verification tool will also help reduce errors when customers enter their address details on mobile.
By 2024, some 187.5 million people will shop via mobile devices, so your checkout process needs to be mobile-friendly if your business is to stand a chance at staying competitive.
By simplifying the checkout experience with address verification, you will improve the mobile experience for customers.
Incorrect delivery addresses can be a huge hassle and cost for small businesses, but they don't have to be. By implementing an ecommerce address validation API, you can eliminate address errors, which helps you:
Find out more about how Loqate's ecommerce address validation can help you improve the customer experience and grow your business. Speak to one of our experts today.