DELIVERY ADDRESS VERIFICATION (DAV) TECHNIQUE OVERVIEW
Delivery address verification is used to check the consumer’s shipping address to make sure it is a deliverable address. Key considerations when implementing or buying this functionality include:
Does the service provider support all of the countries required for the merchant’s business?
Address data changes constantly — how often is the data updated?
Does the service know all of the actual numbers for post offices boxes or private mail-boxes? Does it capture suites?
Does the service do address clean up?
Does the provider validate the incoming address?
Does the provider give Address Standardization?
Does the provider give ZIP Correction and ZIP+4 Code Appending?
Do they provide Line of Travel (LOT) Coding?
Does the provider give Delivery Point Bar Coding
Do they distinguish between Residential and Business Addresses?
Do they provide the Carrier Route Codes and Carrier?
Do they offer Advanced Name and Address Parsing?
HOW DOES IT WORK?
The service takes the shipping address information provided and checks to see if the address exists. It checks the street, city, state, zip code and country. Make sure to do the test in real time for the best results. Doing it in real time allows the merchant to immediately ask the consumer to correct the shipping data. For digital goods providers, use the billing address.
Some delivery address verification services will actually attempt to auto correct the address. It will put the zip into five-plus-four, and it will check the numbers and letters on addresses that have multiple units.
HOW DO YOU USE THE RESULTS?
If the delivery address verification check fails, make sure to ask the consumer to reconfirm the shipping address.
DID YOU KNOW?
Delivery Address Verifcation (DAV) checks a provided address to ensure it is a deliverable and valid address.
The systems used to check addresses are typically the same ones the United States Postal Service uses to deliver mail. So they are good. Remember this service does not check to see if the consumer actually lives at that address, it just verifies that the address exists. The main use for this check is to ensure you don’t have goods returned because the address is not deliverable. But this is also a good way to see if the consumer is using a real address or not.
These services are much higher value for digitally delivered goods to make sure the consumer is not giving the merchant a bogus address. They are good for fulfillment, and for issues with lots of returned shipments due to undeliverable addresses. Some of these services will auto-correct addresses to make sure they work correctly.
KEY NOTES
Alternative Solutions - Get address verification from credit bureaus or consumer authentication services.
Building this In-House - First purchase software with address data, then create a call to the data to check the address. Or if a merchant wants to check this manually they can go to the USPS site to check the address as well.
Estimated Cost - For service bureaus you will pay for each transaction. For software services you will pay quarterly or monthly subscription fees for updates.
Sample Vendors - N/A