Last updated - October 29, 2021
If you have a WooCommerce store and have been shipping your products all around the world, you may have come across problems with wrong shipping addresses. Customers might enter an incorrect address or fill out an incomplete billing address. This may cause your business serious trouble when the packages don’t reach proper locations, or worse, you might have to call your customers to confirm the correct address.
Hence to avoid such problems, you should consider using an address validation plugin. These plugins make use of address validation API that helps you find the right location as well as recognize the address as residential or commercial type. This process will help you calculate the right shipping rate. In addition to this, there are a few plugins that help you lookup address using their autocomplete feature.
While there are some Checkout plugins that offer seamless transactions, address validation and autocomplete features add up to the whole customer experience.
In this article, let’s look at some of the Top WooCommerce Address Validation and Autocomplete plugins.
1. ELEX WooCommerce Address Validation & Address Auto Complete Plugin
This plugin by ELEX offers address validation using UPS, USPS, and EasyPost service. Not only can you choose to opt for automatic or manual address validation, but also allow the customer to confirm the address before validation. In the sense, once the customer’s address is validated, he/she will be provided with an option to choose from the originally entered address or the validated address. This address confirmation process can be done using an inline text message on the Checkout page or a customized pop-up window.
In addition to this, the plugin allows you to enforce address validation, which when enabled, will not allow an order to be placed until a valid address is entered. This enforcement could help you accept valid address only, hence reducing your pain for package delivery. One very valuable feature of this plugin is that the USPS, UPS or EasyPost APIs does not have limitations to API calls.
The plugin also comprises of Address Autocomplete feature which is provided by Google Maps API. The address information fetched using this API is the same as that in Google Maps.
To use this plugin, you will need to register for either UPS, USPS or EasyPost account for address validation. For address autocomplete, you need to signup for Google Developers account. Details for which is given in the respective product documentation.
Check out the Premium plugin | Download the Free version.
2. Postcode/Address Validation plugin
Developed by SkyVerge, this plugin offers address verification, autocomplete/postcode lookup features. The plugin uses SmartyStreets API for address verification. As against to what is mentioned on the WooCommerce site, SmartyStreets is not restricted to United States addresses only. They actually validate addresses for over 240+ countries and territories in the world. For address autocomplete feature, the plugin uses Addressy API, whereas, for address lookup, the plugin supports Postcode.NL, PCA Predict, PostcodeSoftware.net, or Crafty Clicks service.
Some of the APIs that I mentioned above have API calls limitation. You need to check their respective pricing plans and choose the best one that suits your business. Also, you need to signup for an account of the required service you would want to use.
Additionally, depending on the service provider, the plugin allows you to classify the address as residential or commercial type.
3. Global Address Validation for WooCommerce
The third one on the list is developed by snapCX. This plugin uses USPS services to validate the address. One thing that’s quite interesting is that you don’t need to have a USPS account to use this plugin. But the plugin has API calls limitation which is based on the plans you choose.
The plugin also comes in a free version. All you need to do is download the plugin, signup for a free trial of the plugin or go ahead & choose a pricing plan to get started.
Check out the Premium plugin | Download the Free version.
Top WooCommerce Address Autocomplete Plugins
While the above-mentioned plugins have both address validation and autocomplete functionality, there are a few plugins in the market that only cater to Address Autocomplete feature.
Here are some of them:
1. Google Address Autocomplete for WooCommerce
Just like the ELEX plugin that I mentioned in this article, this plugin uses Google Maps API to fetch address suggestions. You need to signup for Google Developers Account to receive the Google API key.
The plugin is translation ready and currently is able to translate English, French, Spanish, Hungarian, Dutch, and Russian.
2. Checkout Address Autocomplete for WooCommerce
This plugin uses Google Maps API as well. It is developed by eCreations. The plugin has simple settings that only contains a setting for the Google API key. The address suggestions provided by the plugin are relative to the country selected in the Checkout page.
3. ClickToAddress Auto-Complete
This plugin is developed by CraftyClicks and provides support to more than 240 countries. The plugin allows the user on the Checkout to enter the address manually or switch to find the address using autocomplete feature.
The plugin is free to download and there are no plugin settings required. You just need to install and activate the plugin.
Check out Crafty Clicks | Download the plugin.
Additional mention: Address Finder
This plugin is mostly used to lookup addresses in New Zealand and Australia. The information is fetched from the New Zealand Post, Statistics New Zealand, and Land Information New Zealand.
It is a free plugin but requires you signing for a free plan to get started.
Over to you…
While product management, order management, payment gateways, and shipping are core pillars that constitute your business transaction, a smooth user experience is something that should not be neglected. You should make sure that the whole order transaction is simple and seamless.
Address validation and Autocomplete plugins largely help in reducing your wastage time for undelivered packages and having to contact your customers to confirm the correct address. In my opinion, an ideal plugin should have both address validation and autocomplete functionalities, as both the features are necessary and it will be easy to operate from a single interface.
Now the ball is in your court!
For more amazing articles, continue exploring LearnWoo.
Suggested reading:
u can use the Validation and Autocomplete Plugins and authenticy check for any plugin?
“These plugins validate the addresses entered on a WooCommerce Checkout page.”