17 blog posts tagged "Ecommerce"

You finally track down an essential addition to your collector’s set of [insert item of your choice], and you're hyped to buy it until the chaos begins. The cart is hidden in a fly-out on the side, cluttered with blocky, overwhelming text. You spend way too long just trying to find the "Proceed to Checkout" button. 👎 That’s bad UI (user interface): messy, confusing design that makes navigation a chore. You make it to the checkout and start entering your info, but the site keeps rejecting your address.

When it comes to address verification, getting a match every time might seem like the goal. After all, a system that always returns a validated address must be working perfectly, right?Wrong. If your address verification API always forces a match, no matter what, it’s not being helpful. It’s actually introducing risk. In fact, getting a “no match” result can frequently be the smarter, safer outcome. Let’s talk about why. What is a "no match" telling you?A “no match” means the input address doesn’t align with any known, valid address in the reference database.

“Remote shopping, while entirely feasible, will flop. ” Time Magazine (1966). This statement is laughable in today’s society. In the last 60 years, online purchasing has become a daily event, and more online purchases are being made every year. In fact, ​In 2024, total ecommerce sales in the United States reached approximately $1. 19 trillion, marking an 8. 1% increase from 2023. Notably, ecommerce accounted for 16. 1% of total retail sales in 2024, up from 15. 3% the previous year. These purchases aren't just small dollars anymore.

Getting deliveries right starts with getting addresses right. In today’s “I want it now“ world of online shopping, customers expect their orders to show up on time and without any hiccups. And the stakes are high: 87% of customers trust brands with excellent customer service. That’s a big deal when it comes to loyalty. But when something goes wrong — like a package sent to the wrong place, delayed by days, or lost in shipping limbo — trust takes a nosedive. Frustrated customers are less likely to come back and more likely to spread the word (the not-so-good kind).

We know it’s not New Year's anymore, but we can still push for improvement and efficiency in our lives. Maybe you’ve lapsed on that goal to be healthier or slightly slipped on your new reading and writing regimen. No worries. Not only are we here to remind you to KEEP GOING on whatever goals you have, but we’re also here to give you an easy-to-implement solution that will create shipping efficiency and stop sending packages into the void. I mean, we’re assuming you don’t like wasting money. If you do… that’s how we’re different.

In 2024, it’s estimated that online purchases, or ecommerce, made up more than 20% of global retail, with 2. 77 billion people shopping online, and those numbers will only get bigger in the following years. With so much online shopping, more goods and services are being shipped than ever before—including during the height of the Sears catalog in 1970. Side note: If you’re reading this and you don’t know what the Sears catalog was or how much it impacted the average home, it’s worth taking a trip down memory lane and seeing how your elders used to shop.

Shipping optimization is rapidly evolving the retail landscape with advancements in shipping technology. From using robotics to increase efficiency and protect workers from dangerous jobs to autonomous vehicles and drones taking items to hard-to-reach areas, shipping has drastically evolved from the infancy of ecommerce in the 1990s. Sure, the 90s are currently having a pop culture resurgence, but your customers don’t want their shipping experience to go retro. One of the most impactful ways to ship effectively is to use a Shipping Execution System (SES).

Cart abandonment is the nemesis of ecommerce. With 70% of carts left stranded, every tweak to your checkout process can lead to significant revenue recovery. Here's how to create a seamless experience, win over customers, and boost conversions. PSST! If you like what you see but don’t want to have to read it, here’s a FREE downloadable guide (in checkbox format for your convenience) for all you skimmers out there. We seriously won’t ask you for a credit card… or anything, really. Building a frictionless checkout experienceA smooth checkout makes all the difference.

Everybody in ecommerce, marketing, or sales knows that it’s not just about the 1st sale–you want customers to come back—a lot. On the surface level, it seems fairly simple to understand why. #MoreMoney 💸Return customers liked their first interaction with your company and product so much, they’ve returned to purchase from you a second time. There’s no set schedule to when they’ll return again, and they may only make one more purchase. Repeat customers are loyal customers who keep coming back again and again.

Don’t panic. We’re not telling you to set up your Christmas lights in July or tune into your favorite holiday station. We’re not crazy here (mostly). But also, do your thang. What we ARE saying is that if you’re in ecommerce, you know just as well as Smarty does that you have to start prepping for those big holidays months in advance. Today is as good as any to see how setting up the right real-time address capabilities, like suggesting verified customer addresses as they type, can get your business in the black on Black Friday.

In our recent webinar, we hosted Jeffrey Duncan, our Technical Product Manager, who discussed the complexities and nuances of managing address data across various international formats. While seemingly straightforward, addresses are quite complex, especially when dealing with international data. Jeffrey highlighted the variability in address formats, which can range from the number of address lines to the order of address components, differing significantly from one country to another. For instance, while a US address typically follows a structured format, addresses in countries like Germany or India can have a completely different setup, impacting data entry and management.

In the growing world of ecommerce, providing a seamless checkout experience is key for customer satisfaction and conversion rates. Fabletics, a leading activewear brand, embarked on a conversion-improving journey with Smarty™ to enhance their checkout process. We recently hosted a webinar filled with insights from Mel Cummings, Vice President of Product Management and UX at Fabletics. Unlocking ecommerce successConsider this common scenario: your customer is navigating through an online checkout process, only to be thwarted by an error, often related to address entry.

Properly implemented address autocomplete can help businesses improve conversion rates by speeding up address entry, improve address data quality by reducing typos, and reduce user frustration related to errant address data. But, if you choose the wrong autocomplete API or make implementation errors, those benefits can evaporate. In our new ebook, "Magical Benefits of Address Autocomplete," where we've compiled valuable insights and implementation tips, including the best practices we'll cover here.

🎩✨ Imagine this: a customer visiting your site doesn't have to enter their address during checkout because your form auto-populates with valid options without typing a single character. It's like magic, right? In fact, it's just good tech! In this blog post, inspired by our new ebook, "Magical Benefits of Address Autocomplete," we're going to show you how to become an autocomplete magician and enchant your forms with the smoothest address entry experience imaginable. Click here to download the ebook and learn more!Abracadabra, your address is ready!Take a moment to imagine your customer's experience when they realize their address is already there, ready for selection.

World Wide Web Day on August 1 celebrates the birth of the World Wide Web and its significant impact on modern society. While the Internet and the World Wide Web are not the same (the Web refers to a web of linked pages via hypertext links while the Internet refers to the exchange of information by people on their own computers), the World Wide Web played a crucial role in making the internet accessible and user-friendly to the general public. Let's explore how the advent of the Internet and the World Wide Web have improved address validation and geocoding.

PROVO, Utah--Smarty, a leader in address data intelligence, today announced that it has been named an industry leader, receiving 22 awards and top honors across address verification and e-commerce tools categories in G2's Spring Report. Awards and rankings originate from customer feedback and reviews, highlighting the best software products for businesses. Smarty ranked first amongst over 50 address verification services, honored with recognition in the following areas:LeaderEasiest To UseMost ImplementableEasiest AdminBest ResultsBest RelationshipBest UsabilityHighest User AdoptionBest Meets RequirementsMomentum LeaderG2's address verification category awards are based on customer feedback and verified reviews from nearly 1,000 customers.

While it's an unfortunate truth of of today's e-commerce world, it is one that cannot be ignored: Fraud is ever-present in online transactions. The expense of unnecessary shipping costs and human resources, disgruntled customers, and the time it takes to investigate disputes adds up. And the damage to a company's brand may result in untold amounts of lost sales. Using an address verification service (or AVS) as one of the tools in your fraud management toolbox is a smart and cost-effective move.