Are you set up to capture accurate addresses from customers this Peak Season? Here's the 5 questions you need to ask yourself
Preparation for peak shopping season extends far beyond inventory management and marketing campaigns. One overlooked detail can silently drain conversions, increase delivery costs, and frustrate customers – and that’s your address capture system.
Our research shows that 70% of the UK population have had their deliveries lost or delivered to the wrong address before. And 1 in 5 find that it happens regularly (what3words research from OnePoll).
Why address capture matters at Peak Season
Peak trading periods amplify every weakness in your checkout flow. A slow address lookup that goes unnoticed during quiet periods becomes a conversion killer when customer patience runs thin. According to USPS, 20% of delivery addresses have errors. When 1 in 5 delivery addresses include errors, this problem amplifies and suddenly impacts hundreds of customers during Black Friday weekend.
The 5-point Peak Season address audit
When it comes to address capture, there are five critical areas where businesses can fall short and five questions every retailer should answer before Peak Season hits.
1. Manual entry vs intelligent address lookup: Are you asking customers to manually type everything?
The challenge: Manual address entry remains surprisingly common, yet it creates multiple failure points. Customers make typos, omit critical details like flat numbers, and abandon checkout when the process feels laborious.
The benefit: Address autocomplete reduces entry time by up to 90% compared to manual typing. During Peak Season, when every second of friction matters, this performance difference directly impacts conversion rates.
What to look for: Does your checkout offer intelligent address suggestions as customers type? Can users select their full address with just a few keystrokes? Or are you still presenting empty text fields that require complete manual input?
Recommendation: Implement predictive address entry that learns from user behaviour. The best systems combine speed with accuracy, offering relevant suggestions while catching common errors before they become delivery problems.
2. Data quality: Is your address data actually deliverable?
The problem: Many retailers unknowingly use address services that prioritise formatting over deliverability. An address might look correct but lead nowhere. This is a costly discovery when your courier attempts delivery.
If you’re using a service that doesn’t utilise validated address data e.g Royal Mail PAF data in the UK, you’re setting yourself up for costly downstream problems. Services that rely on mapping data or crowd-sourced information often contain errors: incorrect postcodes, outdated street names, or addresses that simply don’t exist.
What to look for: Do you know the data sources your current provider uses? Does your address lookup use validated address data?
The difference between “valid-looking” and “actually deliverable” addresses becomes painfully apparent during peak season, when couriers have no time for guesswork and failed deliveries spike.
Recommendation: In the UK, Royal Mail PAF has access to the highest quality and latest data available, with new addresses added daily.
3. Coverage gaps: Are you excluding entire customer segments?
The problem: Standard address databases miss significant portions of the UK housing stock. New developments, converted buildings, and multi-occupancy properties often don’t appear in basic systems, effectively locking out potential customers.
By excluding this data, this leads to issues at checkout for your customers such as an “address not recognised” message. Or missing information for your business such as missing flat numbers or sub-premise data.
What to look for: Can customers in new developments find their addresses? Do residents of converted flats or student accommodation encounter “address not found” errors? Are you inadvertently excluding customer segments who are actually less likely to churn when their needs are properly met?
Recommendation: Ensure your address lookup services has access to enhanced datasets covering “Not Yet Built” properties and multi-residence addresses. This will provide you access to over 1 million additional UK addresses. These aren’t edge cases – they represent substantial customer bases, particularly in growth areas and urban centres.
4. Precision vs. approximation: Can customers pinpoint exact delivery locations?
The problem: Traditional postcodes cover broad areas. In rural settings, a single postcode might span miles or a house with a name might be hard to locate. In dense urban areas, multiple entrances, loading bays, and goods in entrances create delivery complexity that standard addressing can’t resolve.
Research shows 1 in 4 customers report their postal address doesn’t direct couriers to their actual front door (what3words research from OnePoll). During Peak Season, when delivery volumes pressure drivers to maximise efficiency, precise location information becomes critical.
What to look for: Are you giving your customers the power to provide their most accurate address information at checkout? Progressive retailers now capture both traditional addresses (for postal compatibility) and what3words addresses so that they’re capturing the most precise location data. This dual approach ensures packages reach the exact intended destination while maintaining system compatibility.
The most effective systems allow customers to provide enhanced location information without adding complexity to the checkout process. Swiftcomplete allows you to collect what3words addresses via the address autocomplete.
5. Infrastructure resilience: Can your system handle peak loads with instant reliable responses?
The problem: Address lookup systems must respond instantly, even under Peak Season traffic spikes. Delays above one second feel slow, while delays exceeding three seconds trigger abandonment risk.
What to look out for: Assess whether your current provider offers a service that has reliable 24/7 support service. During crucial trading periods, these operational details determine success or failure. If an error occurs, you want to be in a position to solve it quickly with reliable support.
From assessment to action
Retailers who audit their address capture systems now – while there’s still time to implement improvements, consistently outperform those who discover weaknesses during peak trading periods.
The businesses that emerge strongest from Peak Season share common characteristics: they’ve eliminated checkout friction, ensured data reliability, provided comprehensive coverage, enabled precision delivery, and partnered with resilient technology providers.
Next steps for retailers
If your assessment reveals gaps in any of these five areas, consider solutions that tackle addressing holistically rather than piecemeal. Modern retailers are implementing systems that combine instant validation, comprehensive datasets, precision location capabilities via what3words, and enterprise reliability in integrated platforms.
To guarantee a delivery gets to the right place, you need both a valid, deliverable address and an accurate location. Swiftcomplete and what3words , offers a simple and intuitive means to getting you both.
Want expert analysis of your specific setup? Our team can provide you with a free address capture audit to provide you with personalised recommendations based on your platform, traffic patterns, and customer base.
If you missed our recent webinar on how to Prepare for Peak Season Success, you can watch it on-demand here .
Sources:
what3words OnePoll to 2,000 adults in the UK aged 18+ (2022)
PostalPro. USPS, postalpro.usps.com. 2021