By Barley Laing, the UK Managing Director at Melissa
In an age where the price and quality of products is so similar it’s becoming much harder for retailers to standout.
One area where they can steal a march on their competition is in the delivery of fast and accurate fulfilment. This is backed up by research from Ipsos which reveals that 85 per cent of online shoppers said a poor delivery experience would prevent them from ordering from that retailer again.
In the current period of economic instability and continuing uncertainty over global tariffs, providing quick, accurate fulfilment globally is critical for those serious about growth.
There are three ways to effectively deliver this:
1. Collect and maintain accurate customer address data
When all contact data on customer databases decays or changes at around 25 per cent a year as people move home, divorce and pass away, ensure addresses, along with other customer contact details, are correct.
To obtain accurate address data a good place to begin is by using address lookup or autocomplete tools. These services deliver correct address data in real-time by providing an appropriately formatted, correct address when the user starts to input theirs. This approach also reduces the number of keystrokes required by up to 81 per cent when typing an address, speeding up the onboarding process. It improves the whole experience, increasing the likelihood that the user will complete a purchase.
Also, very similar tools can correctly collect email addresses, telephone numbers and names at the first point of contact. Verified and therefore usable multiple contact channels can be critical in forging long term loyalty from customers, and are a great way to inform them of new offers while keeping them engaged with your brand.
Retailers can also carry out data cleansing or suppression activity to highlight those who have moved or are no longer at the address on file. Along with removing incorrect addresses these services can deliver deceased flagging to prevent the delivery of mail and other communications to those who have passed away. This is important because not only does mailing to those who have passed away have a monetary cost, but it negatively impacts on reputation by causing potential anguish to friends and relatives of the deceased.
2. Have access to address data from postal operators worldwide
It is a smart choice to not use search engines, such as Google Maps, for address completion, because this type of data is not verified or certified by postal operators, such as the United States Postal Service (USPS), Canada Post, Royal Mail and An Post; let alone parsed or standardised. Without data from postal operators, it’s not possible to guarantee any address is real, exists or is usable for fulfilment.
Using search engines to source address data will more likely than not lead to a significant number of misdeliveries, resulting in substantial costs associated with returns and redelivery, and reputational damage.
Therefore, when sourcing a service that delivers accurate address data, ensure it has access to data from postal operators. For example, for the US make sure they are Coding Accuracy Support System (CASS) certified for USPS. This ensures that correct, standardised addresses are obtained.
Additionally, in the UK and US run the National Change of Address (NCOA) databases provided by the Royal Mail and USPS respectively, against held customer data, because it highlights those who have moved or passed away. By having quick access to the new addresses of customers who have changed residence retailers will be able to maintain a speedy fulfilment process to ensure a consistent positive customer experience. Other countries have similar data sets.
3 Use geocoding
Once you have an accurate customer address you can add geocodes to further speed up and improve the fulfilment process, and therefore the customer experience. Doing so is smart because location and address aren’t always the same thing. For example, a number of properties may share an address, such as a plot of land or the street edge of a driveway.
The advantage geocoding provides is the provision of latitude and longitude (rooftop level) coordinates, which enables faster, more accurate deliveries, and at the same time improves retailers’ efforts in sustainability, with the swiftest routes for delivery rounds from distribution points identified.
Geocoding is particularly important when it comes to global deliveries due to different conventions for address formats around the world. For instance, the UK uses city, street and house number, but in Japan buildings are referenced by the number of the block they belong to, and within each block buildings are numbered as well. Sometimes it’s done by order of construction, so the numbers don’t necessarily follow each other.
In today’s highly competitive retail environment fast and accurate delivery anywhere in the world is beneficial to provide standout, and therefore long-term growth and profitability. To achieve this, retailers can obtain accurate, verified customer address data globally, including all-important postal operator address data, and undertake geocoding. Without these methods, retailers may be at risk of standing out for the wrong reasons, with delivery delays and returned packages which are costly, not only in monetary terms, but in reputation.
Published 22/05/25
