With the ShippyPro CheckAddress API you can automatically check and validate shipping addresses for 240+ countries – with just one call for all your Carriers.
💡Checking shipment addresses allows you to reduce:
Errors during the shipment process and save operations time
Shipment exceptions and give your customers the best shipping experience
Carrier shipment stock cost, in case of undeliverable addresses
In this article, you will learn how CheckAddress API works, interpret responses and see some examples.
Summary
1. Before you start
If you are new to implementing ShippyPro API please refer to the ShippyPro API docs getting started section. You need to generate an API Key to authenticate with ShippyPro API first.
To use the CheckAddress API, you need to have at least a Carrier connected to your ShippyPro account to send the required ShippyPro parameters as CarrierID and CarrierName. If you need to get your carrier name and ID, please find them at the bottom of the API Keys page in your ShippyPro account.
2. How the validation works
The CheckAddress API provides carrier side and GeoCoding address validations. If the Carrier enables it, the validation takes benefit of the Carrier one, otherwise, the address validation will happen through geocoding.
The Carriers that currently support address validation with their web service are UPS (United States and Puerto Rico), MyDHL, TNT, and GLS Italy. In both cases, the validation process provides an accuracy score that shows you how precise the returned address is.
This API is able to reconstruct an address by trying to guess pieces of a wrong address. For example, if the response returns a 95% accuracy, it refers to the hints returned and comes from the Google API (or the carrier' API - check the list above). The response can never be 100% because the system can never be fully sure if the new, correct information is what the user wanted. The more the API is unsure of this, the lower the percentage of accuracy of the new address.
Skipping Carrier side validation
You can skip carrier address validation by setting Generic as Carrier parameters. Take a look here if you need help configuring ShippyPro Generic Carrier.
Validating International addresses
Check Address API supports international addresses, including Asian and Russian addresses. Please note that address format may vary from country to country and specific rules could apply to those addresses and address parameters to be filled.
Please verify and test address validation results before start shipping.
3. CheckAddress API reference
Visit our API Documentation to view an example of Check Address API request and response. For each validated address you can get the following items in response:
Address Validation Messages: they can be returned (if present) from Carriers API response, as well as from GeoCoding.
Address Suggestions: they can be returned (if present) only from Carriers API response, not from GeoCoding.
New Address: it's composed by replacing the fields reported as incorrect in the initial address with the new values suggested.
Accuracy: it's a field calculated from CheckAddress API that is based on Geocoding. It represents the accuracy of the address.
Talk to our Experts to learn more about our APIs and take your business to a next level! 💪