According to CBRE, ecommerce made up to 20% of retail sales in 2021 and ecommerce sales continues to grow annually at about 16%. Making sure that your ecommerce checkout process is as smooth as possible is essential to increasing conversion rates and reducing shopping cart abandonments.
One way to help with this is to implement an address suggestion tool to your web forms and checkout, which is a service that will suggest addresses based on the user’s input, helping complete their address. Adding an address suggestion tool to your checkout process ensures accurate address captures, smoother checkouts, and up to 30% less cart abandons.
For example, I recently purchased an item from an ecommerce business, and I had to enter a new address. Having seen the capabilities of address autocomplete APIs before, I was curious to see how long it would take for this address suggestor to correctly guess my address. Unfortunately, this one wasn’t good at guessing, and I found myself typing in nearly the entire address before my address appeared. This may not sound like much, but this is one of the friction points that contributes to shopping cart abandonment. So, if online shopping sites should have an autocomplete API and it must be good, which should you choose?
DOTS Global Address Complete is a feature-rich address autocomplete service that offers fast and accurate address suggestions that simplify the checkout process. It offers several features that help with the address completion process, provide valid data, and increase ease of use. Let’s take a look at some of them.
IP Biasing
The main method that sets Global Address Complete apart can be noticed within the first few keystrokes. When using Global Address Complete, you may notice that the addresses will all be in a general area, more specifically the user’s area. This method is called IP biasing, where we use the user’s IP as a starting point to calculate a general location for our autocomplete’s suggesting phase. This is extremely beneficial, as the API does not have to go through all the world’s addresses, nor the addresses of every state if used in the US. It can instead focus on suggesting more locally relevant addresses and saving time.
Global IP Biasing
IP biasing can be used in several other ways, all of which can enhance the functionality of Global Address Complete. Users can control which countries, and for the US which states, are considered in the suggesting phase. Countries can be focused on or ignored with this feature, which is perfect for online shopping businesses with limited shipping capabilities. Whether your business can ship to a select few states or a select few countries, Global Address Complete has you covered.
Address Validation US
In addition to the previously mentioned IP biasing, Global Address Complete has several other features which set it apart from other autocomplete APIs. Global Address Complete has the benefit of including our very own Address Validation – US when autocompleting addresses. This guarantees that all US addresses that are selected are valid and certified for delivery. In addition, Global Address Complete is the only address autocomplete API that uses USPS data and is CASS compliant for addresses in the US.
Easy Integration
The last noteworthy feature is that Global Address Complete can be easily integrated into your business’s website. There are easily digestible developer guides that show you how to add it to your site. Global Address Complete proves to be a versatile address autocomplete API through its unique features. While in general it can help reduce shopping cart abandonment, it also utilizes IP biasing to ensure a quicker response, Address Validation – US to validate addresses, and simple integration for the easiest access.
