Address Autocomplete VS. Verification

An autocomplete API can help reduce form abandonment by narrowing down the options as users type, reducing keystrokes by up to 75% and making the process easier. For eCommerce sites in particular, this can be an important step in minimizing cart abandonment rates and improving website usability. 

However, not all autocomplete solutions are created equal — and some can even have the opposite effect. This is because many of the leading autocomplete providers use global data sets and rely on crowdsourced contributions to provide suggestions. This can result in a huge number of addresses that aren’t actually real, and it can take a long time for the user to select the correct address.

By comparison, an address validation service is the electronic equivalent of stopping the postman and asking him, “Hey, is this a real address?” Rather than simply guessing at what’s valid, it’s about taking the actual address input and comparing it to a trusted source, such as the United States Postal Service database. This ensures that the address is valid, standardizes it and can be delivered to in a timely manner, which is especially critical for e-commerce.

Address validation can be incorporated into forms or integrated directly with an existing database, and it’s easy to integrate into online address fields on any website using Lob’s open API library. We also offer a test environment to allow you to explore the full features of our API before adding it to your live environment, which helps eliminate any internal conflicts.