NZ postal addresses - standardizing / standardization / cleansing

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kingdragonfly

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#289507 9-Sep-2021 15:54

Like many NZ companies, we have databases with customer addresses in New Zealand mostly.

In the States, the US Postal Services has "CASS" certification of addresses:

"CASS(Coding Accuracy Support System) Certification is program that was developed by the USPS to test the accuracy of address-matching software and improve the accuracy of postal coding, such as ZIP+4 Code, carrier route and 5-digit ZIP Code coding."

Of course, Google provides geocoding of addresses, which I think is similar. They charge NZ $7 / 1000 addresses

I found these web pages on NZ post, where various companies offer address cleansing.

Service provider information

Data Solutions Directory

I'm willing to pay for the service.

Obviously it just addresses; I'm not looking for people's names, or personally identifiable info

Anyone have any suggestion?

I'm looking for a nightly batch processing, cleansing new customers' addresses

mentalinc

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#2775568 9-Sep-2021 16:26

https://www.nzpost.co.nz/business/ecommerce/developer-resource-centre#data

You should be validating the data at collection.. the address type ahead feature you see on all ecommerce sites for example..

You could look to use the API to clean up what you have i guess as well, since its an API you could call with anything...

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davidcole

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#2775578 9-Sep-2021 16:56

There’s software called Paflink which I believe was once sold by nz post for cleaning addresses and reporting a statement of accuracy for the purposes of mailing. Anything below about 83% failed t gather any mailing discounts. Talking mail drops of over 1000 envelopes.

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kingdragonfly

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#2775586 9-Sep-2021 17:13

mentalinc:
https://www.nzpost.co.nz/business/ecommerce/developer-resource-centre#data

You should be validating the data at collection.. the address type ahead feature you see on all ecommerce sites for example..

You could look to use the API to clean up what you have i guess as well, since its an API you could call with anything...

unfortunately not an option. Customers sources are wide and varied, and many won't have access to the internett

kingdragonfly

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#2775587 9-Sep-2021 17:19

davidcole: There’s software called Paflink which I believe was once sold by nz post for cleaning addresses and reporting a statement of accuracy for the purposes of mailing. Anything below about 83% failed t gather any mailing discounts. Talking mail drops of over 1000 envelopes.

Looks like that's now DataTools, in 2016

DataTools acquires PAFLink from Acxiom

It looks like they have a lot of options. Cheers

https://datatools.com.au/

davidcole

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#2775588 9-Sep-2021 17:25

That’s the one, sorry was on phone so couldn’t go look for it. We use it at for for exactly the purpose I described.

nigelramsay

80 posts

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#2775598 9-Sep-2021 18:06

If you are looking for a New Zealand based service provider, you could take a look at our service.

https://addressfinder.nz/features/address-verification/

Our address verification service is available as both an API (as you seem to need), and as an interactive CSV upload/cleanse/download service. We also provide the expected auto-complete offering.

We are based out of Wellington, and have been in business for around 10 years. We would be happy to discuss your requirements further. We would love to chat to you tomorrow - contact details here: https://addressfinder.nz/contact/

Thanks,

Nigel Ramsay

jpoc

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#2776257 10-Sep-2021 21:45

In the decade plus that I have been in NZ, I have yet to have a postal address that was considered valid by these address validation services.

Of course, that is just 4 postal addresses so perhaps it will be 5th time lucky.

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kingdragonfly

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#2776277 11-Sep-2021 07:29

For how far backwards the USA is, they've been properly cleansing addresses for 30 years.

How did the Americans do it 30 years ago, even before the Internet was a thing?

Four times a year the US Post Office released a CD.

What's a CD? Those things music used to come on, You might have seen it in your grandparents home, piled up next to a thing called a VCR.

So with the Post Office issue CD, programmers wrote programs that compared a database against it.

One of the benefits was the US Post Office had also introduced Zip+4, a nine digit zip code, plus a "carrier route" (CR) which told the mail carrier which side of the street you were on, so the could deliver your mail like you'd expect it. Do one side of a street, and then do the other side.

Pretty advanced stuff yeah? And this was 30 years ago.

If a certain percentage of your mail had zip+4, and was "certified" meaning you used the latest CD, you got a break on shipping.

I guess NZ Post's Post Code finder is using trained teams of Bellbird to look at their PAF file, and then type in responses, because if they had all the piece, but didn't provide a subscription service, to ultimately make their job easier, and Kiwis happier with better service that would be just stupid.

nigelramsay

80 posts

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#2776280 11-Sep-2021 07:47

jpoc:
In the decade plus that I have been in NZ, I have yet to have a postal address that was considered valid by these address validation services.

Of course, that is just 4 postal addresses so perhaps it will be 5th time lucky.

We accept submissions of addresses that are missing from the official datasets. If you drop the missing address into https://suggest.addressfinder.net then we will verify it, and include it in our database.

jpoc

1043 posts

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#2776417 11-Sep-2021 16:05

nigelramsay:
jpoc:

In the decade plus that I have been in NZ, I have yet to have a postal address that was considered valid by these address validation services.

Of course, that is just 4 postal addresses so perhaps it will be 5th time lucky.

We accept submissions of addresses that are missing from the official datasets. If you drop the missing address into https://suggest.addressfinder.net then we will verify it, and include it in our database.

I am tempted to sing "liar liar, pants on fire".

I have tried this in the past and have been told that the database was correct and could not possibly be wrong because it all came off a computer.

OK, perhaps this has been fixed in the last couple of years but I remain skeptic.

The only people who lose are the businesses that trust the address validation process as they cannot have me as a customer.

I have never failed to find an alternative when this comes up.

richms

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#2776465 11-Sep-2021 17:58

The bigger problem is that there is no authoritative way to find out if an address is classed as rural or not by any of the courier companies. There are many customers we have which have an RD postal address but have courier service from one or more of the brands, and vice versa where their postal isnt rural but some couriers dont serve them so hand it over to someone else and want a ticket to cover that cost.

Based on what I see customers of the day job fill in on the freeform field on the website then I can see how these lists get so many crap addresses in them.

Richard rich.ms