Address Validation
Inaccurate address data is the primary reason why orders do not arrive on time (Magento, 2018). Hence, to increase your delivery rate, Bigblue validates all your clients' addresses!
- What is address validation at Bigblue?
- What do I need to do when an order's status is Action required?
- Why is address validation crucial?
- Best practices to prevent inaccurate shipping addresses
1. What is address validation at Bigblue?
Before transmitting orders to the warehouse, Bigblue automatically inspects shipping addresses:
- 1st case: our automatic corrections apply to obtain a valid address 😎
- A set of automatic corrections are applied (such as adjusting "Aubervillrs" to "Aubervilliers", or automatically adding the province or state name...) until the address is considered as valid.
- You have nothing more to do, the order will automatically get transmitted to the warehouse.
- 2nd case: the address is invalid and the order get blocked in Action required 🆘
- Some parts of the address are not recognised and our system fails to validate the address. It can be addresses that cannot be converted to Latin characters automatically, such as Chinese addresses, it can be postal codes not matching the standard national formats, etc.
- You need to properly adjust the address for the order to be transmitted to the warehouse. See next section for more details on the actions you should perform.
To monitor all orders in Action required, go to Orders and open the Action Required tab. You can also set up notifications for Action Required orders in Settings > Notifications.
2. How to unblock an Action required order?
Please refer to this article to learn how to deal with invalid address.
3. Why is address validation is crucial?
Failed deliveries due to inaccurate shipping addresses can significantly impact your business by:
- Reducing your sales due to decreased customer loyalty
- Increasing your costs since a failed delivery includes refunds, discounts and extra delivery costs
- Damaging your brand reputation — the essence of your business — since one's customer complaint can reach thousands thanks to online reviews and social media
40% of shoppers voice complaints on social media after a failed delivery and 56% are influenced by negative online comments. Yet, 1 in 20 orders never arrive at their intended destination when retailers don’t have the technology in place to allow them to resolve this issue ( Loqate, 2019).
4. Best practices to reduce inaccurate shipping addresses
- Provide a frictionless checkout for your customers
- 61% of customers would abandon their purchase if they encountered issues entering their address details and 34% would even switch to a different retailer because of this
- The main issues that buyers encounter are unrecognised address formats, inability to find addresses from a dropdown list, and address formats changing after confirmation.
- Look for the options offered by your CMS and make sure to test your checkout 💡
- Help buyers entering a valid address
- 51% of customers feel more confident in placing an order with retailers who use technology to suggest the right address!
[Shopify] In your Shopify admin, in Settings > Checkout, tick Validate shipping address
[Shopify] In your Shopify checkout editor, in Settings, tick Use address autocompletion
- Consider adding an address validation plug-in (Shopify, WooCommerce, Prestashop) 💡
