When a merchant ships a package to the wrong address, they don’t only risk angering a customer. Shipping partners UPS and FedEx both charge fees of $17 – $18 per package for attempting to fix wrong addresses. These fees can add up fast — and hit your bottom line.
This problem can be solved with address verification apps. Address validation apps help Shopify merchants streamline their shipping, saving time, money, and reputational risk. And, fortunately, there are plenty of shipping address validator apps that make it easy to capture the correct address for each customer transaction.
In this article, we’ll outline how address validation apps work, their benefits, and share some of the best address validator apps available in the Shopify app store.
What is an Address Validation App?
Address validation is a process that ensures the address provided by a customer is correct and complete. An address validation app is a tool that automatically checks the customer’s shipping address and provides the best match during the checkout process. These apps prevent delivery to an invalid address and all the problems that can arise from entering the wrong address — from extra work or shipping costs to a rising number of unhappy clients.
Shopify address validator apps check for inconsistencies in a customer’s shipping address, such as PO boxes, missing street numbers, or names, as well as other anomalies. These apps can also check the postal code to ensure fields are correct, including a zip code validator. If an issue can’t be resolved, the best address validator apps will notify the merchant via email.
Address validator apps use bulk data from USPS, UPS, FedEx, other shipping companies, and location technology like TomTom to provide address coverage in dozens of countries.
Benefits of Address Validation Apps
E-commerce businesses that implement address validation apps are able to simultaneously improve the customer experience and save money. These apps are relatively easy to install. Shopify businesses can begin seeing the benefits of using address validation apps virtually overnight.
E-commerce retailers that add the best address validators to their website say these tools are:
- Mobile-friendly: the design is responsive to whatever device the customer is using to shop, with a widget that doesn’t take the customer out of the checkout process.
- Customizable: colors, messaging, and functionality of the app can be tailored to reflect your e-commerce site branding.
- Equipped to offer alternative addresses: to prevent invalid addresses, the best validator apps will prompt customers with suggestions when an address cannot be verified. So, if a customer types an invalid address or incorrect format, such as “12 3 main” the validator may suggest “123 Main Street” with the zip code and town specified.
- Improve the customer experience: verifying the customer’s correct address at checkout ensures they receive their delivery on time and without hassle.
Shipping and logistics companies, like DHL, also appreciate when companies use an address validator app. Often, these companies are in the firing line of unhappy customers who have accidentally used undeliverable addresses. When your online store is able to validate someone’s address during the checkout process, everyone involved in package delivery saves time, money, and frustration.
4 Best Address Validation Apps For Shopify
These address validation apps for Shopify may minimize shipment mistakes and save merchants time and money. Many of these apps have different features and capabilities — as you assess which option is right for your Shopify store, make sure you read reviews and ask for a product demo.
Consider optimizing your shipping procedures with these Shopify apps that can verify the correct customer address during checkout.
Address Validator by AppHub
Address Validator is one of the best Shopify apps for flagging and correcting undeliverable addresses. This app reduces instances of failed deliveries to improve customer satisfaction, save merchants redelivery costs, and decrease support tickets from customers trying to resolve a wrong address. Address Validator is used by big brands like Cotopaxi, GM, and National Geographic, as well as thousands of other stores.
Address Validator is free to install, plus the first 100 orders free — it charges $0.04 per order thereafter.
Pros of Address Validator
Address Validator features an easy set up process with no coding necessary. Prompts can be customized with colors and messaging to match your brand, providing a seamless checkout experience for your customers. And, importantly, Address Validator works to fix invalid shipping addresses — both domestically and in 20+ other countries — before fulfillment, preventing undeliverable addresses from being submitted to begin with. It works on mobile devices without any additional coding.
“Our manual address validations are down 98% because of this app! Their customer service team is incredibly responsive and helpful. I’d definitely recommend adding this app to your store if you are receiving a lot of incorrect addresses from customers,” wrote a representative from Oatly!.
Cons of Address Validator
Some reviewers note that certain features of this app is only available for Shopify Plus customers. However, Address Validator is constantly adding new features and upgrades based on user feedback.
Fetchify Address Validator
Fetchify Address Validator sources correctly formatted shipping address information from data providers such as Royal Mail and USPS to make sure incorrect addresses are weeded out. While the app has limited functionality, it does offer the basic ability to optimize shipping and improve delivery for most e-commerce sites. Fetchify is used by brands like Thomas Cook, Casio, and Protein World.
Fetchify is free to install and also offers the first 100 orders free, followed by fees of $0.04 per completed order/address lookup.
Pros of Fetchify Address Validator
This address validator app covers addresses and PO boxes in 250 countries and territories. The app integrates with Shopify as well as over 30 plug-and-play integrations. The app provides fairly basic functionality, such as the ability to fix address typos and errors and reduce the chance of bad addresses leading to failed shipments.
Cons of Fetchify Address Validator
Fetchify works with Shopify, but it’s worth noting that the app isn’t specifically designed for Shopify merchants. As a result, it may take some extra effort to set up Fetchify Address Validator for your unique site. Likewise, some merchants report outages and problems getting the app to work. One merchant reported that the notification asking the customer to correct or confirm their address isn’t very noticeable.
Addy Address Validator
Addy Address Validator is a New Zealand-based company that uses shipping address data from DHL to confirm the correct address. Today, Addy Address Validator is only able to find, autocomplete, and validate addresses in New Zealand and Australia.
Addy Address Validator offers a free trial for one month, followed by subscriptions starting at NZ$90/mo for up to 1500 lookups per month.
Pros of Addy Address Validator
Addy can cleanse your address data set in addition to verifying customer addresses during the checkout process. Update a CSV or Excel file to Addy and the tool will search for non-Latin characters and other anomalies. Addy claims to reduce customer keystrokes by 80%, offering an autofill and autocorrect option that optimizes your checkout process and reduces misdeliveries. It’s another tool that’s optimized for mobile devices.
Cons of Addy Address Validator
Unfortunately, Addy is only available to business owners in New Zealand and Australia.
Validar Address Validation
Validar integrates with Shopify to check for missing house or apartment numbers, validate zipcodes, and check for incorrect or misspelled names before customers leave the Thank You page. It also helps merchants prevent customers from sending to PO boxes, DHL ship stations, and other insecure or inaccurate package destinations that can lead to failed deliveries.
Validar pricing offers validation of your first 100 addresses for free and charges $0.035 per order following your free trial.
Pros of Validar Address Validation
Validar enables the merchant to set restrictions on the types of addresses a customer can input. For instance, if your Shopify ships something of high-value or something oddly sized, you can set a rule that customers won’t be able to enter a PO Box to avoid delivery and reshipping problems. Like the other tools on this list, Validar checks addresses against a worldwide address database to make sure they’re correct. Validar can also be customized to serve those shopping on multi-language sites.
Cons of Validar Address Validation
Validar’s pop-up asks customers to confirm their address when an error is found after the transaction is complete. On your Thank You page, Validar adds a script to send the address to their servers. If your customer clicks out of the Thank You page without verifying their address, the app hasn’t served its purpose and you could risk sending the package to an incorrect address.
Bottom Line
Adding a shipping address validator to your Shopify store is a no-brainer for most merchants. These apps save you time and money with relatively little effort to install and get started. Since many of the best address validator apps offer free 30 day trials, there’s no reason why you can’t add address verification to your checkout process. See how your company and customers can benefit from a Shopify app like Address Validator when you sign up for a free trial today.
