Imagine the frustration of shipping an order only to realize it's headed to the wrong address. Not only does it cost you valuable time and money, but it also leaves your customers dissatisfied. Refunds and re-shipments become an expensive nightmare for any online merchant.

In the eCommerce world, where every address matters, we have two tools ready to tackle this problem head-on: Address Validator Plus and Shopify's Inline Autocorrections.

One is a full-fledged address solution for online shipping; the other is a default feature available in Shopify.

While both of these tools are related to ensuring accurate addresses, they play very different roles.

In this article, we'll dive into the differences between Address Validator Plus and Shopify's Inline Autocorrections via real-life examples. By the end, you'll gain a clear understanding of which one best suits your business needs.

Address Validator Plus steps up as a comprehensive address verification tool, allowing you to standardize and validate customer addresses automatically with ease.

On the other hand, Shopify's Inline Autocorrections offers a default feature that suggests corrections to typos in street addresses, which is aimed at catching common mistakes.

Let’s go through a few examples to understand the key differences between Address Validator Plus and Shopify's Inline Autocorrections.

Example: 556 4th St, San Francisco, CA 94107

Customers sometimes transpose two numbers when checking out, especially during flash sales and/or on mobile devices.

For example, 565 4th St in San Francisco exists, but 556 does not.

Let’s look at how three different address tools will respond to this customer error:

Address Validator Plus would have prompted the customer for an alternative address.

Shopify’s Inline Autocorrections would not have done anything, and this package would have likely been undeliverable and would have incurred a rerouting fee to the merchant.

Example: 301 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94105

Another common mistake when entering a shipping address is customers omitting their apartment number.

For example, the Millennium Tower in San Francisco has over 400 units, and an address without an apartment number is likely to result in a failed delivery, ultimately meaning an unhappy customer.

Let’s look at how three different address tools will respond to this customer error:

Address Validator Plus would have prompted the customer for an apartment number.

Shopify’s Inline Autocorrections would not have done anything, resulting in a failed delivery.

Example: 3191 Middlefeild Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94106

Customers may input typos in the street address, city, or zip code fields, and UPS/FedEx charges address correction fees to rectify these issues.

Without address validation, these customer typos are costly but do not commonly result in failed deliveries.

Let’s look at how these address tools will respond to this customer error:

Both solutions would have offered suggestions to fix the issues.

With Address Validator Plus, the customer could make the address corrections with one click, whereas the Shopify Inline Autocorrections would have required multiple clicks and would not have been as time-saving.

To empower you to make an informed decision that will streamline your shipping process and protect your business from unnecessary expenses, let's look further at the key differences between Address Validator Plus and Shopify's Inline Autocorrections.

Address Validator Plus allows merchants to specify address rules to meet the needs of their 3PLs and couriers (ie, deterring PO boxes, parcel lockers, long addresses, emojis, etc.)

Address Validator Plus covers addresses in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States.

Shopify’s Inline Suggestions cover Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bermuda, Czechia, Denmark, Faroe Islands, France, Italy, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, United States.

Address Validator Plus allows customers to update multiple address fields with one click, while Shopify’s solution requires separate clicks for each field, which can dramatically reduce the checkout conversion rate.

Address Validator Plus’ prompts can be highly customized to match the brand’s identity to look native to your website.

Address Validator Plus offers support via chat or email to help merchants through any issues and is constantly improving the app based on customer feedback.

Shopify’s Inline Suggestions are free, while Address Validator Plus charges $0.05 per address processed after the first 100 orders.

High-volume merchants processing more than 20,000 orders per month may be able to get a discounted rate.

However, the savings from investing in Address Validator Plus typically outweigh its cost. Check out the ROI calculator to learn more.

With our examples above, we hope you understand the main differences in the performance of Address Validator Plus and Shopify’s Inline Suggestions.

If you’re looking for a shield against failed deliveries, saving you from unnecessary expenses and frustrated customers, Address Validator Plus is the perfect tool you need.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, then please feel free to reach out to us: