Postcode lookup and how it improves checkout conversion

When it comes to ecommerce, the most important online process is the checkout. A poor experience when inputting and validating an address will hinder conversion, and could be losing you customers who abandon their orders out of frustration or confusion. Adding a postcode lookup system on your site will make filling out forms less of a hassle for consumers – making them less likely to abandon their orders. Affinity can offer a quote to add postcode lookup, to make implementing it on your site even easier, and to ensure that you have the best postcode lookup possible, and so a great UX, we have some tips:

Work around errors 
If you have a lot of people typing O instead of 0, or putting a space where one isn’t needed, then their address may not be coming up. To avoid this, incorporate a system that prepares for common mistakes such as this, so that their address can still be found regardless of any typos. 

Update Regularly 
Much like with errors, if your address database isn’t regularly being updated, then there could be a lot of addresses that are being missed out on, translating to orders that you’re then losing as well. 

Works for International Addresses 
It’s a good idea to find a way to ensure your form works for other countries, as postcodes and addresses are often formatted differently.

Predictive Search
Including predictive search is a lot quicker than typing in an entire address, and means that users don’t have to scroll as far to find theirs. As well as this, some people may not know their postcode, or the postcode of the place they want something sent to, and as people don’t organically write the postcode first when writing an address, it would also make sense to include a predictive search for whole addresses. 

Good Mobile Experience 
It’s important that this system works well on mobiles too, particularly as a lot of consumers use mobile devices these days to shop online. A good mobile UX would mean that they don’t have to scroll too far, buttons and fields are large enough to click easily, the form works in landscape and portrait, different phone models keyboard functions are incorporated, and required fields are clearly pointed out as well as explained.