How to Validate International Customer Addresses in Ecommerce?
The online market is a global one. Yes, there are countries that prohibit certain types of commercial transactions, but that shouldn't stop you from selling internationally. There are some special circumstances to consider when doing business internationally as well.
If you're an ecommerce merchant and need to validate international addresses, you know the struggle of manual methods. Validating international addresses manually is nearly impossible so that’s why you are advised to validate them using APIs.
They're tricky and require a lot of attention to detail. The fact that most international addresses don't follow any specific pattern makes it challenging to process, and the length of the address also can make it time-consuming.
Why is Address Validation Important for International Clients?
By validating addresses with integrated APIs, you're able to determine if your customers have a billing address and a shipping address in the same country. You also get to determine whether they have input the correct information such as ZIP codes, city, street names, etc.
You also get a chance to identify any characters that aren't supported or any missing information. Don't worry if your current validation processes aren't as robust as you would like them to be for international transactions. There are ways you can improve your process.
Address validation is important because it allows you to:
- Avoid delivery failure rates.
- Avoid transaction decline rates.
- Reduce the risk of chargebacks due to incorrect address entry, typos, and undeliverable packages.
How to Validate International Addresses in Ecommerce
There are several solutions available to validate international addresses in your ecommerce store. You can either use one of the vendors that offer address validation services or you can do it in-house.
You can outsource for address validation through:
1. Online Address Validation Service Providers
These companies offer a range of address verification products and services designed to help you ensure that customers' billing and shipping addresses are correct.
They provide country-specific functionality and integrate with online payment gateways, shipping carriers, inventory management systems, ecommerce shopping carts, and more to ensure that all customers receive the best possible service from your business.
2. Address Validation using API
Your ecommerce website can use the address validation service deployed by an external company to validate shipping and billing addresses. This solution means that you can outsource address validation to a third party, cutting your setup, support, and cost-of-compliance costs.
Embedding an address validation service into your website is no longer a key part of the ecommerce process. Instead, it's become just another part of the complete supply chain.
Benefits of Address Validation for Ecommerce
Address validation is an important factor in the smooth delivery of products in ecommerce businesses. Without address validation, you end up with deliverability issues, customers canceling orders, and communicating their displeasure which may lead to reputation damage.
1. Reduce Cost
Without address validation, the cost of the returned item will break the bank. By ensuring accurate delivery of the ordered products with an address validation process, you can reduce the rate of returned items due to the wrong shipping address.
2. Improve Delivery Rate
If you have the right shipping address, the delivery rate will increase significantly. The more accurate the address, the faster a package will get to its destination. By improving your delivery rate, your customer satisfaction rating and customer experience will also improve.
3. 3rd Party Services
Address validation is an integral part of shipments to 3rd party providers such as pharmaceutical companies and freight companies. A direct shipment from your warehouse to another party means that you must ensure that their address is valid in order for them to receive the package.
4. Avoiding Chargebacks
Customers' address input issues can be a major source of chargebacks if they do not receive packages and are charged for them.
Address validation provides two important benefits here: (a) you can check the customer's address accuracy before shipping the package and (b) after shipping, you can look for possible chargeback reasons a lot more quickly than you could have without address validation.
5. Avoiding Fraud
There are a lot of fraudulent practices that happen online. The payment methods that fraudsters use range from credit cards to IPOs to gift cards, just to name a few. Address validation helps prevent fraud from happening by allowing you to verify and secure your payments with better security measures.
Final Words
Using the address validation services is an excellent solution for small and medium businesses, especially if they have a demand for more advanced features. Most merchants still prefer to use address validation tools that come with platforms.
If you are interested in leveraging the power of the address validation, here are some benefits that you can get from using it:
- Make your business stand out from your competition.
- Free up time and resources for other tasks.
- Increase repeat customers by providing a better shopping experience for your previous customers.
- Improve customer satisfaction through better delivery rates and quality products delivered.