Google mishaps

So regimented is the address system, in fact, that anomalies are very noticeable.

Close to where I live, the building number along the street jumps suddenly from 140 to 368, I presume as a result of demolitions and re-buildings after the Second World War. This is so unusual that a prominent notice has been added to where the buildings abut: “here begins number 368”.

Even within apparently standardised systems like this, though, there is a fair amount of variation. Thoroughfares often change name along their span. One street in Amsterdam changes its name six times along its (quite short) length. Not only a nightmare for taxi drivers, it also confuses the all-conquering Google Maps, which is only able to show the first and last segments of the thoroughfare.

Cardinal win

Street layouts, names and systems, as with their numbering, differ markedly throughout the world. Within Chinese philosophy, the cardinal compass points have great significance. This is reflected in the street addressing system, which can see street names within cities change as many as 16 times, with the building numbering recommencing when the name changes. Streets may be divided into east and west or north and south, such as Nanjing dong lu (Nanking Street East), Nanjing zhong lu (Nanking Street Central) and Nanjing xi lu (Nanking Street West).

Whereas in Europe building numbers with more than three digits are a rarity, in North America thoroughfares can be longer, and building numbers of five or more digits are not uncommon. Yonge Street in Canada claimed for many years to be the world’s longest street, at 1896 km. It isn’t, as its name changes along its length, and fortunately the building number ranges repeat too.

In the New World many streets are numbered rather than named. Confusingly, some are numbered and named – in New York, Sixth Avenue, or Avenue of the Americas,  is a commonly quoted example of this.

International street-smarts

In some countries, building numbers count up along the same side of the street; in others odd and even numbers are on either side of the road.

In still other countries, such as Japan and Korea, the roads are seen for addressing purposes as just the (usually unnamed) empty spaces between buildings – the blocks and buildings are numbered in the order in which the building was built (excellently explained here). This is a system which, while confusing for visitors, virtually guarantees the postal workers’ jobs for life!

Whole swathes of the world have streets with no names and buildings with no numbers.  When people need to guide visitors to their location they use charming but highly inconsistent descriptive addresses – “to the left of the second bridge, beyond the blue building and opposite the supermarket”.

Don’t be fooled: they’re avenue on

It’s not just address block formats which change between countries – the whole infrastructure the addresses describe differs too.

Interesting though these anomalies are to some of us, they have serious consequences for your international data gathering, processing and storage systems. Equally, don’t be fooled by apparently uniform addressing systems – every system has its idiosyncrasies and its exceptions.

As ever, the rule is to arm yourself in preparation for these differences by learning about them – knowledge is the key to good international data management.

Price rises are never going to be welcome, but Royal Mail has stressed the changes were not only inevitable but necessary to keep the six-day universal postal service alive.

EU Must Be Joking

Even after the increases, second class stamps will still be amongst the cheapest in Europe, while first class are still around half the cost of posting letters in France and Germany.

Royal Mail also pointed out that service standards in the UK are “appreciably higher” than in many other EU countries, with deliveries over six days against an EU minimum obligation of five days, and a next-day target of 93%, the highest for any major European country.

Royal Mail has also made many operational improvements to the Postcode Address File (PAF) recently, including the introduction of British Forces Post Office data.

Pushing the Envelope

Indeed, Royal Mail offers a high-value quality service that needs to be paid for. Consumers get a remarkable, reliable service, with a letter delivery service to every one of the 28 million addresses in the United Kingdom at a uniform price, irrespective of distance travelled.

Like so many things in the UK, the postal service can be somewhat taken for granted – and if it takes bringing the price of stamps more in line what our European cousins pay to save it, that seems more than reasonable to us.

But the changes have left many companies wondering how it will affect their overheads. Initially it may appear challenging for small and medium size businesses, but what’s the truth behind the headlines?

Frank It, My Dear, I Don’t Need a Stamp

Closer scrutiny reveals that price increases for franked mail are a lot more modest. A first-class 100g franked letter is up to 44p from 39p; second-class up to 31p from 28p.

This makes a switch to franked mail cheaper than the price of stamps even at pre-change prices.

Behind the panic, higher-volume business customers will simply not feel the effect in the way many are suggesting, and do in fact appear to be somewhat protected.

Addressing the Problem

Due to errors in the postal address, Royal Mail destroys on average 25 million letters, packets and parcels every year. A mountain of undelivered correspondence – costing millions in postage – is amassed at the firm’s National Returns Centre at a rate of almost 70,000 items per day. It should come as no surprise that the majority of this is business mail. Beyond postage costs, this undelivered mail means extra cost and damaged reputations for your business.

For a business, outdated data could mean a failed or misplaced delivery, a missed opportunity, and a lost sale, not to mention brand damage. Part of the service we pay for is Royal Mail’s tenacious grip on the accuracy of its address database, the Postcode Address File (PAF®).

The same cannot be said of the databases maintained at the other end: somewhat inevitably, consumer data degrades at a phenomenal rate of 13% and business data by 37% on average every year, as people move house, change their names, and even pass away. These errors in addressing come at a cost for both the business involved and the Royal Mail themselves who have to attempt to process the invalid addresses.

Catalogue of Errors

What are the costs of this on your business? We can tell you. Imperfect address data costs UK businesses £146 million every year. It might not be as satisfying to complain about boomerang mail shots when your next catalogue goes out, but the cost is significant.

So while the inescapable stamp price changes might make our Christmas card list a little more expensive this year, hopefully they may also be a wake-up call to review all our mailing activities and avoid unnecessary cost and expense.

Internet World has been going for years (20 this year in fact) and is advertised as the UK’s longest running, best attended and biggest annual event for digital marketing. The three day show attracted over 12,000 visitors and more than 300 exhibitors.

Fantastic Opportunity

To say we were excited to attend the event would be an understatement. Not only did it provide us with a fantastic opportunity to meet equally passionate and knowledgeable professionals interested in improving their online presence, scope out future trends, and attend some insightful seminars, but also because it marked the launch of our brand new addressing tool, Capture+.

In case you haven’t heard about it yet (and if not where have you been!) Capture+ makes address entry easier at checkout by combining search-engine style auto-suggest technology with worldwide address datasets and rapid mobile integration. To find out more and discover what benefits Capture+ could bring to your business click here.

International Reach

This was only my second show, but IW2012 struck me as being particularly international in its reach. Our stand was surrounded by companies from France, United States and Germany, and we had a large number of visits from people from other areas of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.

Capture+ fit the bill perfectly and proved to have an undeniably international appeal. Some people came back to our stand with their colleagues to show off the new addressing tool that they had found.

Congratulations!

To celebrate the launch we teamed up with Virgin Experience Days to give away three once-in-a-lifetime giveaways. The prizes include a flight for two in a hot air balloon and a luxury day trip to Paris, and a chance to drive one the world’s newest supercars on the road, the Ferrari F458 Italia.

We are pleased to announce the following winners of the competition. A huge thank you for everyone that took part!

Hot air balloon flight for two: Kevin Peck from InterDealerAuctions

Luxury day trip to Paris and lunch at the Eiffel tower for two: Steve Smith from Ashburnham Insurance

Keys to a Ferrari 458: Tomas Vaskela from VNP Design

All in all, Internet World proved to be a great success to enhance our knowledge and generate new creative ideas. We would certainly recommend attending next year’s event!

Be secure

Our recent research indicates that security was the number one concern when shopping online. For a lot of people, the idea of sending your credit card details from your phone can still seem a little alien. Your customers will only purchase products once they feel safe and confident in your mobile store.

Make it clear to them what is being tracked, what data you are collecting and why. Ensure your privacy policy links are clearly visible to avoid any future headaches (or lawsuits). You should also provide full contact information for your customers to get in touch should they need to.

Speedy sites

In the world of eCommerce, a page taking ten seconds to load can seem like an age; in the world of mCommerce it can seem like a lifetime. A slow-loading website will almost definitely turn customers away – before you’ve even had chance to talk to them. In fact, 44% of online customers rated a slow loading page as a top reason to abandon their cart.

Another common culprit for data-laden slow pages is Flash. Your mobile site should be free of flash completely. Bear it in mind that iPhone and iPad users won’t even be able to see Flash anyway.

Seal the deal

Smart phones are all about convenience, something retailers can’t ignore in their mCommerce strategies. Once customers have made a choice, they’re only interested in buying and completing the checkout process as quickly and painlessly as possible.  Your site should offer useful features such as one-touch add to-cart buttons. Non-essential steps in the checkout process and enforced sign-up can add friction and are likely to result in a lost costumer. Read more ways you can improve the checkout process here.

Multichannel!

It’s important to remember that not everyone is comfortable with buying from a mobile device, so it’s vital your site accommodates all of your shoppers. In fact, our recent survey of online shoppers found that 52% of participants rated the option to collect items directly from a shop as important. (Plug alert: help your shoppers find your shop by adding a store finder to your mobile site!)

Get Social

Remember that smart phones are also social devices! Make it easy for users to share your products adding to wish lists and one-touch posting capabilities to sites like Facebook and Pinterest.

It’s also important to remember that smart-phone users will often have one of their email accounts tied to their phone, so when they receive an email they can check it without going to their computer. For this reason, you will want to make sure that ALL or your emails to customers are mobile-optimised.

Sites that don’t deliver

Browsing his favourite stores online, I noticed the majority of sites can’t deliver to British Army Garrisons. This is because they use postcodes to capture the mailing address details. If you’re familiar with our website you will know of the time-saving and data-quality advantages postcode look up brings to a check-out process.

However, the UK forces use a very different method of getting their post, the British Forces Post Office (BFPO) system, which is used to send materials wherever the forces are serving. As there is no postcode, BFPO addresses do not conform to the online purchasers’ addressing templates, and as a result the online stores often fail to recognise the addresses.

Missing a trick

Ecommerce sites are so obviously missing a trick here. Not only are they missing out on generous sales from families trying to send gifts, but also from the service people themselves, as my friend informs me that internet access is available almost everywhere and the soldiers are quite partial to an online browse in their spare time!

Finally a solution…

In a bid to change all this, Royal Mail, BFPO and Postcode Anywhere have teamed together to produce BFPO addresses in a Royal Mail PAF format – each with their own postcode. With this in place, all I needed to do was enter a BFPO number or the new postcode in order to retrieve the whole address. It’s really that simple.

BFPO data is now available with international address finder at no additional cost. There are over 650 addresses corresponding to different deployments, bases and vessels around the world.

For the first time ever, British shoppers will be able to buy what I am told is the French maestro’s “signature red-soled designs,” directly from the label’s online boutique. As the saying goes… better late than never, Louboutin.

In true Louboutin style, the website is anything but vanilla. There is a clear focus on the user experience, where you can opt to fast-track or explore the history of the luxury brand on its corporate site.

Shoppers have the opportunity to shop via the website by size, colour and even heel height, making the options very easy for customers to choose from.

You can zoom in on each of the designs, and even view 360 degrees around each shoe or handbag!

Slow Load

Each design is set to a backdrop of photos from the designer’s personal travelogue, including urban contexts and even chickens! One thing I did notice that the pages were often very slow to load. This could be because of design, or maybe the sheer volume of numbers on the site that week; either way, it’s not impressive. A slow-loading site will have your customers peddling for the back button faster than you can say Jim Choo!

When building your site, a useful rule of thumb is to think about the content first, then the navigation, then design. If you do need to use a lot of graphics, make sure to optimise them for the best look and smallest fit.

Keep dreaming…

I really liked the fact that this site had a wish-list functionality. For any site with high-end products like this, it’s a good way of encouraging return visits and a way to reduce cart abandonment rates. Users can then share their finds with friends on Facebook and Twitter. I am already anticipating receiving a hefty list from my wife!

Although the site requires you to register, they do clearly state the benefits of doing so. Giving your customers an incentive is a good way of encouraging them to sign up, again making them less likely to abandon their carts.

The login uses an email as the username which is another good idea that can really speed up the checkout process. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have countless usernames across countless sites, which you will forget. Email addresses are memorable and unique so it eliminates that need for a “USER NAME TAKEN” message.

Painless Postcodes

The sign-up process itself was actually pretty painless. The site uses a postcode finder, another proven way to expedite signing-up. Rather than typing out my entire address, I could just enter a postcode and then select what I needed from the returned addresses.

As a man who doesn’t know his stiletto from his wedges, I was relieved to see the site offered style advice from a team of online personal shopping experts via live web chats and over the phone. Creating a more personalised shopping experience is key to standing out in the market. With so many other sites competing to sell the same thing, it’s really important to have something that will make your company shine above the rest.

Be Transparent

When I was ready to purchase, I made my way to the basket and was happy to discover that I could enter my postcode to receive an estimated delivery charge.

Businesses need to be transparent with any additional costs from the start, in order to manage customer’s expectations. Providing any extra costs, including tax and delivery charges, will almost definitely result in more customers completing their purchases.

Overall I was rather impressed with the site; however, my wife might have to wait a little longer than she’d like for her wish list. Although many of the reputable brands are rather late in releasing their sites, they have realised it’s no longer enough to just have a website, which is why the company will also be launching a mobile version and an app later in the year.

One lone voice

The lone voice that tried to explain that ZIP code is synonymous with the (hardly used 6-digit) Nigerian postal code was drowned out by the 234-strong crowd.

This is not a rare problem, and the ideas put forward to get people through the forms are very worthy… but are hardly conducive to collecting good data:

Divided by a common language

Why should Nigerian users know what a ZIP code is? Zone Improvement Program, or “ZIP” codes, were created by the United States Postal Service (USPS) and it’s a term that’s only widely used and universally understood in the United States.

The United Kingdom has postcodes. India has PIN (Postal Index Number) codes. Many other countries use the more generic term “postal codes”.

This is not just an English-language issue, and it applies to other parts of addresses too. A post office box in France is a Boîte Postale… but step over the border into Switzerland and you would empty your Case Postale. Canada uses the latter terminology too. Spaniards have an Apartado de Correos, while many Latin American countries have an Apartado Postal – and still others have a Casilla de Correo!

Administrative challenges

Whereas you’d probably be asked your state in the USA, you’d need to ask for a province or territory in Canada, a state or union territory in India, a state or territory in Australia, a canton in Switzerland, a department in France or a county in Romania.

It’s also a challenge to get one’s head around the administrative situation in some other countries, such as the UK!

This ZIP won’t work on the fly

When you’re collecting data via an online form, translating the form into the local language increases response rates and improves the quality of the data collected. But translation is not enough – the terms used and the fields presented need to be localised into the version used in that country.

Online forms in English for the USA, the UK, Ireland, India and Australia would all look very different, using different fields and different terms which local customers would understand.

Doing little to aid data quality

The fact is this: if forms are in a single language, such as English, the use of local terms such as “ZIP code” will reduce response and increase data pollution.

Field labels need to use generic terms (such as postal code) and not be afraid to explain what is required. Short, pithy field labels may be the ideal for many user experience professionals but they do little to aid data quality!

Even if you do want a short field name, there’s nothing to stop you applying a mouse-over explanation. A label Postal code/Postcode/ZIP code/PIN code may not look very flash, but it will mean more to most people than ZIP.

Inaccurate addressing costs the retail industry a staggering £146 million every year. Even the smallest mistake can have major consequences down the line, from failed postal delivery and lost custom to wasted time and resources.

Soon to announce a brand new service

Postcode Anywhere is launching a new tool to help change all this, and make one-click ordering that much easier for ecommerce managers to set up.

The new service makes address entry easier at checkout by combining search-engine style auto-suggest technology with worldwide address datasets and rapid mobile integration.

Users simply start typing an address and the search tool starts working immediately, narrowing the results down after every character typed. We think there’s nothing quite like this on the market with the same potential for increasing ecommerce conversion rates, improving usability, and ensuring address data is accurate – and we hope you agree!

Three once-in-a-lifetime give-aways

We will be launching Capture+ at Internet World, the UK’s longest-running, best-attended and biggest annual event for digital marketing and online business, taking place on 24th-26th April.

To celebrate the launch, we have teamed up with Virgin Experience Days to bring you three days jam-packed with once-in-a-lifetime give-aways.

The prizes include a flight for two in a hot air balloon and a luxury day trip to Paris, including a cruise along the River Seine and a champagne lunch at the Eifel Tower. And for the real thrill-seekers out there, on the final day of the competition, we’re offering a chance to drive one the world’s newest and greatest super-cars on the road, the Ferrari F458 Italia.

How to take part

Taking part in the competition is incredibly easy. All you have to do is answer a simple ‘what is it?’ question on our website. The competition opens at 9.30am on 24th April.

To have a chance of winning the prize you want, make sure you enter the competition on the right day – or just enter once every day! If you submit your email address before the start of the competition we can drop you a reminder so you don’t miss out.

Winners will be picked at random on the following day and announced on Twitter, LinkedIn and on our competition page.

Good Luck!

Whether the tragic monarch said: “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” or not, it is nice to think that cake and philanthropy have their rightful place in the annals of history.

Honouring both cake and philanthropy

I am happy to report that just recently the team at Postcode Anywhere have honoured both cake and philanthropy in our latest fund raising activity.

As part of our Colossal Cake Sale in aid of the charity Help for Heroes, our Hallow offices were temporarily transformed into a bakery as everyone brought a home-made cake to work.

The display of cakes and buns was so impressive – and again, it highlighted what a multi-talented group of people we have at Postcode Anywhere and how everyone does their utmost to raise money for a good cause.

Help for Heroes

Help for Heroes is a very worthy charity that provides practical support for those soldiers who return from military conflict seriously injured and need to rebuild their lives. The charity’s Colossal Cake Sale is really gaining momentum as an annual event guaranteed to give aspiring bakers a chance to demonstrate their culinary skills. For people who don’t particularly like baking, it’s a great opportunity to taste some really scrumptious cakes, pies and biscuits.

There were cakes galore in all sorts of shapes and sizes including muffins, cup cakes, brownies and biscuits. Amongst the larger cakes there was a rather inviting lemon drizzle cake, although we have it on good authority that it was not completely home made and that someone called Sainsbury gave its creator a bit of a helping hand.

Amongst the cake beauty pageant was a stunning and rather imposing coffee cake, which was made by our highly creative graphic designer Gemma Britton. She proved that she is just as accomplished and dexterous with a palette knife as she is with a mouse. Gemma very deservedly walked away with the day’s prize for the ‘best looking cake’ which was a rather appropriate apron and cookie cutter.

Raising over £145

The day was a great success and again meticulously organised by our HR/Office Manager Christine Cameron and was as smooth as Mary Berry’s Victoria sandwich mix. Bless Mary, who is surely the Patron Saint of the “good bake”?

Christine came up with the brilliant idea of raffling the cakes which was fantastic. We raised a £145 and ate so much cake that we really were ‘caked out’ and unable to move for the rest of the afternoon.

Well done to everyone for a great collective effort and well done Christine for coming up with yet another fun (and ‘calorie-packed’) fund-raiser.

To find out more about the Help for Heroes charity visit: www.helpforheroes.org.uk

X.commerce provides online merchants with eBay’s full range of commerce products like PayPal, eBay, Magento among others. It’s not one ecommerce platform, but a pre-packaged integration that means all the components are already pre-integrated for you.

Working at Postcode Anywhere, we quite often get to dip our toes in the water with a diverse range of platforms, many claiming to be “the next big thing” but nothing has really had the technology to backup this statement quite like X.commerce.

Customise for any business needs

The developers at X.Commerce make the technology easy to customise to any business needs. The ability to scale quickly without investing in expensive complex configuration allows small businesses to compete with large international corporations, and win!

As an established provider of address auto-fill technology, we look forward to providing merchants with what we feel are the very best services for improving usability and contact data quality.

We were invited to be an inaugural partner at the launch and are really excited to be partnering the world’s first open commerce ecosystem. We anticipate that X.commerce will drive technology-powered commerce to the next level, to radically transform global ecommerce and we can’t wait to be a part of it!

Image “Shop Until You Drop” by Banksy, courtesy of QuentinUK, Wikimedia Commons