Reduced undeliverable packages by 22% with over 420M+ accurate addresses verified in a year

Shippo, a global shipping and logistics platform with hundreds of employees, offers a simple way for businesses to compare postage costs, purchase and manage labels, and track packages for efficient delivery. With integrations across 100+ carriers and services used by enterprise clients, small businesses, and individuals, Shippo facilitates accurate and efficient shipping across the globe. “Shippo gives you scalable shipping tools, the best rates, and world-class support.”

Deliverability was and is a critical KPI for Shippo’s customers. “Deliverability is everything in shipping,” said Saurabh Sharan, Project Manager at Shippo. “We have to be able to determine if an address by itself is deliverable or not.”

Businesses expected shipping efficiency from Shippo to print accurate and deliverable customer address labels so their packages reached their intended destinations. If Shippo supplied invalid, bad, or inaccurate addresses, its customers encountered shipping delays, increased labor, reshipping expenses, lost revenue, customer mistrust, and a poor brand reputation.

Shippo handles millions of domestic and international addresses annually, so attention to detail was vital for them and their customers' success. Even a tiny mistake could have costly repercussions over time, so reducing the number of undeliverable packages because of low address quality was a high priority.

While already outperforming their competitors, Shippo sought an address expert partner to enhance their premium offerings.

In 2021, Shippo integrated Smarty's address validation APIs into its processes to ensure accurate shipping data and minimize failed deliveries. With clean address data, Shippo could reduce undeliverable packages due to address-related errors, improve deliverability logistics, and provide efficient delivery processes for customers of all sizes and locations.

By implementing Smartys US Address Verification and International Address Verification products into their existing systems and processes, Shippo hoped to eliminate bad addresses, improve delivery efficiency and data accuracy, and do the same for their customers.

Shippo offers multiple touchpoints where address validation occurs within their product:

Implementing Smarty’s API’s was straightforward. According to Saurabh, “The documentation was very easy to understand. Smarty’s API also allowed [Shippo] to build in additional business logic, such as validating addresses to different levels (city, street, apartment) based on available data, so that was incredibly helpful for our use cases.”

Identifying the API responses with Smarty’s support team was incredibly useful. “Specific technical and product questions we’ve had were answered with very clear and quick solutions,” stated Michelle Miller, Engineering Manager. Saurabh agreed: “The support team, in combination with clear documentation, really helped.”

Reduced undeliverable packages: Saurabh shared that after integrating Smarty’s Address Validation API into their web application, they saw an overall reduction in address-related errors reported by carriers, specifically errors caused by a bad address in their customer address database. Shippo noted that the enhancement increased delivery efficiency and reduced undeliverable packages due to improved address validation early in the shipping flow. Although exact percentages are under analysis, the trend is positively impacting Shippo and growing.

Enhanced accuracy with metadata: Shippo relies heavily on the metadata points returned by Smarty’s validation service for address quality insights. For example, Smarty’s address verification allows Shippo to distinguish between residential and commercial addresses, which informs customers of relevant and accurate shipping services for their packages. This added layer of detail ensures customers don’t choose inappropriate shipping options that could lead to delivery failure or increased postage costs.

Additionally, having address records with current address data is extremely important when calculating labor and shipping costs. Saurabh said, “There's definitely an improvement in our web app deliverability because of this new address enhancement that we've done with Smarty.”

Fast and reliable performance: “I think the first thing that surprised us about using Smarty is definitely uptime and response times, which have been consistently fast,” stated Saurabh. “That's crucial for us to build a stable product.” With enterprise customers concerned about SLAs and response times, Smarty’s APIs consistently perform exceptionally well, with response times around 300-400 milliseconds for high volumes of data processing, according to Shippo. This efficiency ensures that Shippo’s products operate seamlessly for their customers, especially during peak shipping periods. The uptime has also been dependable, providing Shippo with the essential reliability to keep their operations running smoothly.

Scalable address validation across multiple regions: Shippo uses Smarty’s API for address validation in the US and is exploring ways to leverage Smarty’s property data and enrichment APIs for improving deliverability, particularly in areas where secondary address data, such as apartment numbers, may be missing. Shippo complements Smarty’s data with other validation services for international shipments.

The Smarty advantage: Shippo’s team praised Smarty’s documentation clarity, responsive support team, and reliable uptime. Their Engineering Manager noted that even when technical questions arose, Smarty’s support team provided comprehensive explanations and potential solutions. Shippo is confident in continuing its partnership with Smarty for future address validation needs.