International address verification: choosing the right provider

Operating an international retail business comes with more obstacles than one might realize. As online retail sales in Canada topped $37 billion dollars, it’s becoming more important than ever for businesses to utilize international address verification.

Why you need international address verification software

One of the most important aspects of international retail sales is often the most overlooked— address verification. High-quality address data is crucial for your business and it’s vital that you choose an address verification partner to help you capture correct and legitimate customer data, every time.
Let’s take a look at why you need address verification.

Bad data is bad for business

Regardless of the size of your operation, it’s vital to your business to ensure that your product reaches its intended destination in a timely fashion. However, bad customer data can lead to logistics and shipping errors, which can be costly mistakes. Research shows that poor data quality can cost the U.S Economy as much as $3.1 trillion annually.

Good data is good for business

Address verification tools dramatically reduce errors during your customers’ checkout process. They confirm the validity of their address and match it against a database of verified addresses.

The perks of using address verification software

Address verification software has numerous benefits. Invest in it to:

•Save expenses on returned shipments, failed delivery fees, and chargebacks
•Optimize onboarding, registration, and checkout experiences
•Improve customer satisfaction and loyalty
•Enhance data analytics by capturing demographic and location data
•Fuel localized and personalized communications and programs

The pitfalls of international address verification

Last year, international e-commerce saw a considerable amount of growth, with a 21 percent increase in worldwide sales. With the growth of online shopping, it’s easier for consumers to shop internationally. If your business wants to acquire and serve international customers without issues, it’s vital to invest in an address verification tool.
Let’s review a few of the difficulties online retailers face when taking their stores international

Address structures and formats vary from country to country

It’s relatively easy to spot a mistake or missing information in Canadian addresses— they must contain a postal code, province, and town or city name and verifying them online is simple. Other countries have their own methods for structuring addresses. This is especially problematic in areas that are remote with unnamed roads and buildings. Your business may record and save inaccurate international address data without any way to verify it or correct mistakes. Most countries have their own unique address formats. It’s important for you to accept address information in the correct format. Depending on where your customers live, they may put their street name, postal code, or building number first. Forcing customers to enter their address in a new-to-them way can lead to confusion and errors.

Language barriers create confusion

Adjusting your business to accommodate your overseas customers can improve your overall customer experience dramatically. But with over 3,000 spoken languages, it can be hard to communicate with every potential customer. In fact, research shows that 40 percent of global consumers are not comfortable purchasing from websites that are in other languages. And 72 percent of customers prefer to make purchase decisions in their native tongue. By integrating a tool like AddressComplete into your checkout, you show your customers that you are here to serve them in their local format.

The benefits of AddressComplete

It is critical to capture the right address data, every time. Failing to keep up with your competitors, delaying deliveries, and collecting bad data can affect your bottom line. Choosing the right address verification provider for your business can be a challenge. Here are a few of the benefits of working with AddressComplete.

Verified Global Data

AddressComplete has relationships with high-quality data sources such as Canada Post, USPS, Royal Mail, and Australia Post. You can rest assured that the addresses your business collects will always be legitimate.

Consistent Updates

According to a Statistics Canada survey in 2018, 35 percent of Canadians moved in the last five years. Considering this high move rate, it is important to keep address information that is up-to-date at all times. This ensures that your data is always as accurate as possible, which reduces costly delivery mistakes.

Fuzzy matching

Typos are inevitable in data entry. Unfortunately, these simple mistakes can lead to costly consequences for your business. AddressComplete offers Fuzzy Matching which allows your customers to identify and correct common typos and errors. For example, if a customer types “Bolder’ instead of “Boulder”, the technology will prompt the user to select an address with the correct spelling instead. Besides spelling, the technology also corrects errors in spacing, transposed characters, missing letters, and recognizes abbreviations.

Transliteration

Communicating with your customers in their native language should be at the top of your priority list. AddressComplete is able to change character sets- such as Russian, Arabic or Chinese- to similar-sounding letters in either native or Roman characters while keeping the underlying meaning. This makes for a much more user-friendly experience for your customers.

Why you should choose AddressComplete for international shipping

Consumers want flawless shipping and delivery experiences ,and your company wants to deliver them. Our user-friendly interface and high-quality address data will help you gather accurate address information from consumers, every time.

Powered by the most accurate global location data available in the market, AddressComplete’s technology helps our clients reach customers around the world, reduce failed deliveries, improve conversion rates, and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Our global API is available in 130 different address formats, 3,000+ languages, and 245 countries and territories. To provide global coverage, our address data is sourced from key international providers — including Canada Post, the United States Postal Service, Australia Post, the U.K.’s Royal Mail, and a host of other best-in-class and official providers.

Want to learn more about how address verification software can transform your international business?