End Delivery Nightmares: Address Verification + Tracking APIs
by Marco Raye
According to the Small Business Association (SBA), 30% of new businesses fail during the first two years of being open, 50% during the first five years and 66% during the first 10. A contributing factor to this stat is in the execution of your supply chain and how fast you can move product with precision each time. Today you will learn about two solutions EasyPost offers to help your business prevent the chaotic situation of a delivery gone awry.
Setting the Stage: “Where’s My Package?!”
It’s the question that shoots a cold streak of panic down the spines of ecommerce business owners and customer service representatives everywhere. You’ve successfully marketed your product and completed the sales funnel to receive a new order. Your product ships, and either goes missing or arrives at the incorrect address without your customer (or you) knowing. What now? And more importantly, what does this mean for my business? The nightmare begins.
Negative Impacts of Lost Orders
Losing the whereabouts of an order during its transit creates a vortex of opportunities for customers to adopt the idea that your brand is unreliable, unorganized, and undeserving of repeat business. Even worse, these instances are a gateway to negative online reviews and increase your chances of being slammed on social media. Either way you look at it, these situations can quickly place you in a public relations crisis no growing brand wants to face or invest in to remedy.
EasyPost’s Simple Solution APIs: Address Verification and Shipment Tracking
EasyPost created technology to address the everyday pain points of supply chains across the globe. We developed a suite of shipping APIs designed to consolidate and streamline your current operation to accomplish three main goals:
- Save production time
- Lower operational costs
- Prevent erroneous deliveries from injuring your brand image
To end the nightmare of flawed deliveries, we offer a tech-forward approach featuring our Address Verification API and Shipment Tracking API. A unique aspect of EasyPost is that our suite of shipping APIs can operate singularly, or in conjunction with one another depending on your individual business needs. Address Verification and Shipment Tracking are popular amongst our customers since they simultaneously offer robust benefits to both business owners and their end customers.
Address Verification: Never Send to the Wrong Address Again!
Improve your deliverability by 62%. The Address Verification API enables your business to confirm the accuracy of domestic and international addresses before sending to your customers. What’s the value-added to your delivery process by using this solution? Ensuring the packages representing your brand are delivered to the right customers at the right time frame every time. Additional features of this system include:
- Flagging Residential vs. Commercial addresses
- Correct mapping of city-to-zip code
- Confirm individual units exit in apartment or condominium buildings (within the US)
To better show how the EasyPost Address Verification API interacts with our customers ecommerce platforms, see the below example:
Shipment Tracking: An End to The “Where’s My Package?” Nightmare
Empower your business with intelligent delivery estimates. Our Tracking API provides real-time shipment updates across 100+ carriers to you and your customers. Take total command and own the customer experience with features like:
- Branded Tracking Pages: Dynamically change your logo, customize the theme of this page around your brand theme and colors, or include an ad to continue engaging with customers while they await their order.
- Webhooks: Send unique messages and delivery status updates to customers, including special event or promotional announcements. Push delivery data to your site allows you to notify customers of package movements via text, mobile apps or Facebook messenger, send automated emails when there is a tracking update and keep your WMS up-to-date with the progress of your packages.
Here is an example of a customer’s branded shipment tracking page:
Enhancing Your Shipping and Logistics with EasyPost
Today you learned that your ecommerce business can’t afford to do the following:
- Send orders to the incorrect address.
- Lead customers astray on the exact whereabouts of their order during delivery transit.
To keep these issues from occurring, EasyPost delivers a flexible, tech-forward approach that removes the hassle of dealing with upset customers and the expensive headache of an erroneous delivery.
If your business faces complications with product delivery, has questions about how you can optimize the delivery phase of your supply chain, or questions on EasyPost’s innovative Address Verification API and Shipment Tracking API, contact a shipping expert at EasyPost today!