Seems like a problem that What3Words is trying to solve.
Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shipping and billing forms
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Re: Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shipping and billing forms
#12I have also encountered web forms which must validate my address. Turns out, the backing database did not contain my address. I could not order at the store. After contacting the store, they told me that their data was always accurate and therefore I must be a fraud.
Re: Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shipping and billing forms
#13How does mail carriers deliver packages? what do they use?
The plus code is basically encoded GPS coordinates. The carrier can use a GPS device to determine the delivery location.
Re: Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shipping and billing forms
#14Doesn't what 3 words already solve this problem, and seems to have commercial momentum? http://what3words.com
Re: Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shipping and billing forms
#15I don't know how many sites I have seen that require state, and some even have a list of counties to select from. Last time I checked only USA, Australia, Canada, China, Mexico and Malaysia use state in address. The other ~200 countries don't use it
Re: Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shipping and billing forms
#16It's funny, even in the Netherlands we feel a (tiny, tiny) bit of this: all foreign websites have address entry systems that always ask for a state/province (and even faithfully produce a list of all our provinces). We indeed have them but locals ignore them entirely, city, street, number and postal code are all we, and domestic companies, use.
In Magento, you can choose by country if you want this field or not. So I guess it’s true for most of the online shop solutions.
But as stated by others (about Ireland in their example), even companies that had their hq there asked for zip code at a time there was not any.
So I guess if you start shipping internationally, it’s a big job to make a form that fits every cases.
I wonder if someone have made a list of those particularities. Could be a good idea if not.
Re: Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shipping and billing forms
#17I checked out the linked https://plus.codes/individuals Steps for creating a Plus Code are: 1. Open the Google Maps app. 2. Touch and hold a place to drop a pin on Google Maps. 3. At the bottom, you’ll see an address or a plus code. Tap this section to find all details of the location and copy the plus code. If the primary use case is creating an address for my current location - e.g. Home. Then, the instructions are…
I agree with your feedback but even beyond that the "Enter city or plus code" form seems broken. I went to a random place in mongolia, I got a plus code of "5PJF+FJQ" and when I enter it in the form it doesn't work: https://plus.codes/5PJF+FJQ
I think it's a nice concept though, I could see myself using something like that if it became more mainstream, it's a little more convenient than GPS coordinates if you want to meet with somebody in the wild or a large park for instance.
Edit: oh, I got it, the tags at the bottom of the map are not the complete one, they're "local" (you have to give the general location too like "5PJF+FJQ Bayankhongor, Mongolia"). The full code is 8PR25PJF+FJ
Re: Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shipping and billing forms
#18It's funny, even in the Netherlands we feel a (tiny, tiny) bit of this: all foreign websites have address entry systems that always ask for a state/province (and even faithfully produce a list of all our provinces). We indeed have them but locals ignore them entirely, city, street, number and postal code are all we, and domestic companies, use.
Same here in Greece, all the post office needs is your street name and postcode. Not even city (the postcode defines that uniquely, same as everywhere else). I don't know why forms get hung up on those.
Re: Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shipping and billing forms
#19I have also encountered web forms which must validate my address. Turns out, the backing database did not contain my address. I could not order at the store. After contacting the store, they told me that their data was always accurate and therefore I must be a fraud.
As someone who verifies addresses for a public K-12, that's laughable. New addresses show up all the time and often don't yet appear on the tax parcel site or in the USPS address database, let alone Google Maps. There are entire roads that don't appear in online resources the first month or two that the subdivision is open. There have even been a few roads that were re-addressed and those can take up to year to get updated everywhere.
Re: Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shipping and billing forms
#20I don't know how many sites I have seen that require state, and some even have a list of counties to select from. Last time I checked only USA, Australia, Canada, China, Mexico and Malaysia use state in address. The other ~200 countries don't use it
You do realize that that’s the vast majority of buying power and economic success right? At least in terms of population.