International address validation
Although the web opens up your shop window to a global audience, it can also cause major headaches because capturing accurate, correctly spelled and formatted address details for international countries is far from straightforward.
Overseas address data is just not the same
Beside the obvious language differences, the situation is further complicated by the fact that there are more than 120 different address formats around the world. How you deal with accents and unfamiliar characters that may not exist on your own keyboard; or address formats, such as for Germany - where the house name or number appears below the street - is a typical issue which you need to get right if you are to avoid offending potential overseas customers.
The key is in the data
At Postcode Anywhere we take a master international address dataset, which is provided by TomTom - the company that supplies the data behind Google maps - and we supplement it with additional, richer, address data from some of the world’s major postal service providers including Royal Mail and USPS (United States Postal Service) to suit your requirements. This gives you maximum choice with simple, cost effective cross-border licensing.
Product features
- Deals with transliteration so that characters such as an ß can also be interpreted as a double “s” as in strasse.
- Understands and formats accents
- Automatically selects from over 120 world address formats based on geography of IP range
- Covers all major languages including Latin, Cyrillic, Hellenic.
- Can include geo-location data if required
- Typical search result returned in under 40ms.
- Covers the Americas, Europe, Australasia and parts of Asia. See the full country list here.
We have confidence in the integrity of the data we receive, which is really important to us. There are 240 countries in the world and we have a market presence in nearly all of them. With over 120 different address formats and 6,000 languages, not having to manage and update our data amounts to huge savings in resources.
Works with...
- Capture+
- Windows Client
- Web service APIs
Delivering addresses across the globe
Postcode Anywhere International doesn’t just allow customers to look up and auto-fill an address from a postal or zip code. Smart AJAX controls predict any address as it’s typed, across the UK, US, Canada, Europe, Australasia and parts of Asia. Not only that, but we support all languages and character sets in each country - because not everyone in France speaks French. The service is fully customisable and will sit seamlessly on your website, always on hand to guide your customers to rapidly fill out valid address details and complete the sale.
All the datasets, one simple licence
International address data from TomTom (which incorporates address data from trusted private and governmental sources) is supplemented with additional richer address data from postal service providers including Royal Mail and USPS. We've sorted out all the red tape and licensing agreements so all you have to do is tick a box and start using it!
Postcode Anywhere International is the only one-form-fits-all solution that makes it simple for customers to enter their address details quickly and accurately, wherever they come from.
Sample data
| Name |
Type |
Description |
Example |
| Street |
String |
The name of the street. |
Ahornweg |
| District |
String |
The secondary locality name (rarely used). |
|
| City |
String |
The city / town for the address. |
Steinigtwolmsdorf |
| State |
String |
The state, province, county or canton name. |
|
| PostalCode |
String |
The formatted postal code. |
01904 |
| CountryCode |
String |
The 3 digit ISO code representing the country. |
DEU |
| Country |
String |
The country name (based on the ISO code). |
Germany |
| AdminArea |
String |
The administrative area for this location. County in the USA. |
|