Online shopping in Africa doesn’t work because of shipping and billing forms

Post by Kluny » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 5:25 PM UTC

tantalor wrote: post #99

Kluny wrote: post #93

I'm betting Nicaragua has similar problems. I remember addresses that were like, "From the third roundabout, take the first exit toward the lake, turn left at Oliveo funeral home, take the second exit, fourth house on the left (it's blue)." No street names or numbers, and you have to know what "third roundabout" means to even get started (there are three major roudnabouts in Managua, the third one is the one closes t…

> It's a single word in Nicaraguan Spanish What is the word?

Post by Epenthesis » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 5:34 PM UTC

Kluny wrote: post #93

I'm betting Nicaragua has similar problems. I remember addresses that were like, "From the third roundabout, take the first exit toward the lake, turn left at Oliveo funeral home, take the second exit, fourth house on the left (it's blue)." No street names or numbers, and you have to know what "third roundabout" means to even get started (there are three major roudnabouts in Managua, the third one is the one closes t…

Post by Kluny » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 5:37 PM UTC

Epenthesis wrote: post #103

Kluny wrote: post #93

I'm betting Nicaragua has similar problems. I remember addresses that were like, "From the third roundabout, take the first exit toward the lake, turn left at Oliveo funeral home, take the second exit, fourth house on the left (it's blue)." No street names or numbers, and you have to know what "third roundabout" means to even get started (there are three major roudnabouts in Managua, the third one is the one closes t…

> "toward the lake" means "north" Fascinating! Lake Nicaragua (which is what I'd naively assume a person in Nicaragua would mean by "The Lake") is in the south of the country, so that's really unintuitive. Edit: OH, I see this is in Managua, which lies on the southern border of a different lake. I guess it's like New Yorkers using "downtown" to mean "south" (or rather, southwest)

Post by tehwalrus » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 5:45 PM UTC

staz wrote: post #25

4ndrewl wrote: post #14

Doesn't what 3 words already solve this problem, and seems to have commercial momentum? http://what3words.com

From previous conversations on HN, wasn't the problem that to use What3Words, you have to use their online proprietary system? and thus won't work offline and make you dependent on their service? Plus Code seems to just be encoded Gps coordinates which seems far easier to integrate.

Post by ghaff » Fri, Jan 12, 2018, 5:47 PM UTC

larrik wrote: post #98

teekert wrote: post #7

It'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.

Even in the US stuff like that happens. I recently refinanced, and the lender kept getting hung up on how they needed to "contact my county" for verification. Well, in Connecticut a "county" is nothing more than a name on a map or an organizational method. It's not an actual government entity, there's no one to contact.