Address Standardization for Ecommerce Checkout

A bad shipping address caught at checkout costs a form re-submit. The same bad address caught after the order ships costs a failed delivery, a support ticket, and a refund.

The problem

Autofill, copy-paste, and manual typing all introduce inconsistencies — missing unit numbers, transposed fields, unrecognized abbreviations — that pass basic “is this field non-empty” validation but still aren’t deliverable.

How address standardisation helps

Standardising the address at checkout confirms it parses into complete structured components while returning standardized expansions. This powers instant address suggestions, auto-expands abbreviations (St → Street, Ave → Avenue), and flags incomplete or nonsensical input immediately while the customer is still on the page.

Example

POST /v1/address/normalize

curl -X POST "https://api.goodvat.com/v1/address/normalize" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $GOODVAT_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "query": "42 Wallaby Way, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia" }'

200 OK

{
  "houseNumber": "42",
  "road": "wallaby way",
  "city": "sydney",
  "state": "nsw",
  "postcode": "2000",
  "country": "AUS",
  "expansions": [
    "42 wallaby way sydney nsw 2000 australia",
    "42 wallaby way sydney new south wales 2000 australia"
  ]
}

Key response fields

Field	Why it matters here
expansions	Canonical string representations for address confirmation prompts and customer search suggestions.
houseNumber / road	Missing or unparsed values signal an incomplete address before checkout completes.
postcode	Cross-check against city/state to catch typos before the order ships.
country	Confirms the address matches the selected shipping destination.