It's funny, even in the Netherlands we feel a (tiny, tiny) bit of this: all foreign websites have address entry systems that always ask for a state/province (and even faithfully produce a list of all our provinces). We indeed have them but locals ignore them entirely, city, street, number and postal code are all we, and domestic companies, use.
I recently refinanced, and the lender kept getting hung up on how they needed to "contact my county" for verification. Well, in Connecticut a "county" is nothing more than a name on a map or an organizational method. It's not an actual government entity, there's no one to contact.
Same here in Greece, all the post office needs is your street name and postcode. Not even city (the postcode defines that uniquely, same as everywhere else). I don't know why forms get hung up on those.
In the early days of the web, you used to be able to tell NY v. CA dev shops online because all the NY shops only had "search by state" while CA had "near my zip-code".
When you can pass through 3 states in 3 hours, it makes sense to "search for all McDonalds in NJ". However in TX and CA, "all McDonalds in TX" is worse than useless for what the customer is actually looking for.
We have regions and départements. These are formal structures/entities but are never used in addresses (you get a hint of the département in the zip code).
The foreign web firms do list them, usually correctly. Sometimes they mix up the regions and the départements (usually using île de France, which is a region around Paris, and the rest being départements).
This is not harmful (and ignored during delivery) but shows a one size fits all approach
Same for Denmark, technically we do have regions but they're not even worth writing on any address. Same goes for Portugal, where I've lived: no state/province/region exists; on forms stupid enough to require that you just end up putting the city name again. Same goes for requiring city and postcode.
Blaming this on shipping and billing forms, as the headline and the article text suggests, is missing the forest for the trees. The deeper issue at play is developer and business naïveté; trying to transplant knowledge and assumptions that work fine elsewhere into a particular market where different conditions exist.
It's sometimes easy to assume that if something works in sunny California, it will be applicable in Michigan, or Germany, or anywhere on the globe, and for large fractions of the globe this breaks down under scrutiny. After all, one of the attractions of doing stuff "online" is to not be bound by physical constraints, but activities like logistics clearly involves moving around physical goods, and commerce is all about markets, so what works on one market may fail miserably in a second. Even old-hat brick-and-mortar companies make these mistakes, even if they don't skimp on a local consultant.
Anyone who's actually engaged in post or logistics in areas with limited government-maintained addressing knows that communication is essential, delivery places tend to be negotiated on the fly, and knowing how to get to the destination is more important than where the destination is on a globe. Newfangled coordinate-encoding systems don't solve this: intelligence and know-how on the ground does.
Make no mistake, few of the companies with these problems value these markets. If they valued these markets, they would've figured this out.
> It's sometimes easy to assume that if something works in sunny California, it will be applicable in Michigan, or Germany, or anywhere on the globe, and for large fractions of the globe this breaks down under scrutiny.
See also the falsehoods programmers believe about various things (not even just addresses):
A friend of mine who distributes consumer goods in Congo (yes, the whole of Congo) through an online shop explained that a phone call is an essential part of the delivery process - even more important than the address because it is how the actual delivery location is negotiated.
Of course, this is only a problem for valuable items (one wouldn't trust postal employees with that) - regular mail in Africa ends in a PO box.
Expecting customers to be map-literate or adopt whichever fancy geographic coordinates keywords landgrab of the month is a bit hopeful and far removed from logistical realities.
Online shopping doesn't work in Africa, not because of web forms with an ability to capture localised addresses, but because of the lack of affordable, reliable logistics. Africa is vast and largely rural. You can get reliable delivery at a cost. Cheaper delivery options have a tendency for things to get lost.
While I applaud OP for bringing modern tech to Africa in the 'Silicon Savannah', online shopping requires highly efficient logistics infrastructure that goes beyond web forms.
Source: I built and operated successful online retail in Africa.
> Online shopping doesn't work in Africa... I built and operated successful online retail in Africa
Now that's a head-scratcher! Seriously though, I hate these overbroad generalisations - obviously online shopping does work for some value of Africa. I know of people in Africa who shop, pay for and arrange delivery of second-hand Japanese vehicles all online. It's a multi-million dollar industry.
>..not because of web forms with an ability to capture localised addresses, but because of the lack of affordable, reliable logistics.
Ironically, most African countries have functional postal services that are struggling because WhatsApp has replaced letters. Online shops should partner should partner with postal services instead of trying to "revolutionize logistics" unsuccessfully. Trust me, the logistics are fine: if manufacturers can get their product to even the most remote corners of a country, maybe look into how they are doing it, instead of trying to re-invent it with a phone app.
Isn't the real problem the lack of organization at the state/city level in these African countries? Is a postal code and street address system really that impossible?
> Look at that form. It has things like street address, state/province, zip code? What is that? I can only tell you that I live in Kanyanya, a Kampala suburb. If you need my exact home, then I’ll either have to send you a GPS location via apps like Whatsapp, Telegram, Google Maps or engage you in a long phone conversation in which I’ll try to describe landmarks, building and trees leading to my house. But street address, zip code? Hell No.
I mean GPS coordinates sent by WhatsApp + name + simple description seem like a decent alternative but it too should be standardized then. But it seems bizarre to me to have local governments not attempt to set up a basic system for mail/package delivery.
It's not just bad for ecommerce but all business, law enforcement, and even democracy.
I have also encountered web forms which must validate my address. Turns out, the backing database did not contain my address. I could not order at the store. After contacting the store, they told me that their data was always accurate and therefore I must be a fraud.
The first time I ordered something from Amazon to be delivered to my workplace, I spent like half an hour trying different variations of the address so that it would pass the validation. And my workplace is a university building where 200+ people work, in a European country.
Finally, I got it to work by typing "Campus of <X> Place, Faculty of <Y> Building". It wouldn't work without the words "Place" and "Building", which we don't ever use (we typically just write "Faculty of <Y>, Campus of <X>"). And the form didn't provide any clue about that being the problem.
The address on a letter has always been a free text input field, it still is when one writes private letters, and everything works fine. Why they have to complicate so much something that just works is beyond me.
I once needed to replace an expired health insurance card but since I don't live in the same country where my health insurance is registered, I called the company to inquire about whether it's possible to have the card shipped to another country. Of course it is! Just enter your address into a form in their Easy And Convenient Online System. Turns out, their system wouldn't process the request unless it validated the address. It seems the company paid for a version of the database which contained house-level details from my home country but other countries only had cities listed. That meant I could enter the city and then I could use a dropdown to pick one of the zero streets the system knew about. Suffice to say, I didn't get my health insurance card.
As someone who verifies addresses for a public K-12, that's laughable. New addresses show up all the time and often don't yet appear on the tax parcel site or in the USPS address database, let alone Google Maps. There are entire roads that don't appear in online resources the first month or two that the subdivision is open. There have even been a few roads that were re-addressed and those can take up to year to get updated everywhere.
Steps for creating a Plus Code are:
1. Open the Google Maps app.
2. Touch and hold a place to drop a pin on Google Maps.
3. At the bottom, you’ll see an address or a plus code. Tap this section to find all details of the location and copy the plus code.
If the primary use case is creating an address for my current location - e.g. Home. Then, the instructions are too many.
A "click this button" to create a Plus Code for your current location would work wonder.
Or if they had an app, the single instruction above would equally apply.
*
I think Plus Codes would fail most Zip Code validation tests.
The first time that I went on vacation to Africa I was mindblown. The concept of city, town or even village broke down for me; one of the places where I was staying was just a streak of houses dispersed more or less close to a single road. Addresses were hardly a thing, people just knew where each one lived, so you had to ask for 'xyz house'.
I don't want to sound PC but this is the kind of reasons why more diversity and breadth of life experiences is good for businesses.
Google Contacts seems to solve this by just having a big textarea for you to write your contact's addresses, and I guess showing that address in Google Maps is done by just sending the whole thing as a query against their Maps API.
I don't know how many sites I have seen that require state, and some even have a list of counties to select from. Last time I checked only USA, Australia, Canada, China, Mexico and Malaysia use state in address. The other ~200 countries don't use it
This article is a bit ignorant, typically one provides just a rough area and a phone number so the courier can call and drop it off to you at home or at work.
This is why you just need a suburb or area and your cell #. You need to be available to sign for packages in African countries and they typically cannot just be dropped off on the porch.
The problem with buying online is just the availability of things is poor, you don't have an Amazon-esque level of availability & websites that do basically buy from Amazon and sell it to you after an extenuating long timeframe.
Ordering from abroad is a hassle because of customs and duties and ridiculous charges such as the SGR levy (for Uganda and Kenya) because of the new rail line (even though the rail line isn't really used for your package). If you order something small like shampoo its likely to cost triple and a minimum of $30 from abroad.
The only great experience I've seen is from takealot. Jumia not so much. Kudos to those guys who run Takealot.
For someone who has lived in Africa the address system, or lack thereof is just something people are used to - it's still possible to find places without an exact numerically marked address. It's likely a dedicated courier who is very knowledgeable on the local areas & landmarks is to drop the package over a postman so it makes little difference.
It's a bit of a shame when these type of articles come up once in a while that distill a "sort of issue" into the prime issue on why it doesn't work. It's not to say proper addresses would help alot, but it's certainly not the reason e-commerce hasn't really taken off. The last time it was a discovery on how a small fan can get rid of mosquitoes - obviously not the reality either.
> This article is a bit ignorant, typically one provides just a rough area and a phone number so the courier can call and drop it off to you at home or at work.
But isn’t that what the article says? That a structured address isn’t appropriate and that other means (such as a pick up locator or, as you scribe it, some level of coordination) is what the companies should be using instead?
In China we always write cell numbers. Always. Otherwise stuff goes missing.
Recently a large number of urban single-use electronic lock postbox providers have emerged, which automate away the inevitable phone calls from time-poor couriers and deliverymen by SMS-ing you a code to your local single use postbox. If you go enter the code, you get your mail. Otherwise, after 24 hours or some exceedingly short time they take it away and your parcel enters no mans land, in which case you have to request redelivery.
I'm betting Nicaragua has similar problems. I remember addresses that were like, "From the third roundabout, take the first exit toward the lake, turn left at Oliveo funeral home, take the second exit, fourth house on the left (it's blue)."
No street names or numbers, and you have to know what "third roundabout" means to even get started (there are three major roudnabouts in Managua, the third one is the one closes to the lake. And "toward the lake" means "north". It's a single word in Nicaraguan Spanish and it's used in place of the usual Spanish word for "north".
Many years ago I was in Gibraltar and needed medical assistance (non-life threatening but I was sick as heck). So I called my traveller insurance.
The british-sounding lady at the other end wanted a zip code. I didn't know of any zip codes and looking at letters in the building's mailbox I could not see anything looking like a zipcode.
She said she could not direct me to a 'nearby' hospital if she didn't have a zip code.
Told her to just pick randomly, that took some convincing. How far could you be from a hospital in Gibraltar anyway?
From previous conversations on HN, wasn't the problem that to use What3Words, you have to use their online proprietary system? and thus won't work offline and make you dependent on their service?
Plus Code seems to just be encoded Gps coordinates which seems far easier to integrate.
W3W is proprietary, has commercial aims (you can purchase short-codes), cannot be used offline, is completely dependent on the provider, and a simple transposition of words will result in somewhere completely different.
Simply using lat/lng or one of these deterministic systems (geohash, plus.codes, etc) is a far superior option for something to be adopted globally.
This thing is beyond terrible. Just tried it. It's auto picking my browser language instead of English. The choice of words is terrible, I don't know how to spell half of them, I can't imagine anyone able to write them down or understand them over the phone.
In France (don’t know how it works elsewhere) shops can be a shipping point. It creates a network for transporters and it’s a must have for any online shop.
If the transporter ships directly to your home, you have to be here when he comes (and in France you never really know...).
If you haven’t bought large furniture or fridge or whatever, it’s simpler to go to a shop, it’s open on a wide range of hours.
For the shop owner, it can be a good deal as, well, you are in his/her shop.
In Ireland we only recently got postcodes. The reason was not because the postal service or delivery companies needed them - in fact An Post (national postal service) explicitly said they did not.
Instead it's because:
a) enough online shops assume you have one
b) advertising mail providers needed it
Frankly if physical spammers need it, then that's an argument against having it to me, and it's sad that online shops forced this by just assuming we had them :(
I'm glad we finally got postcodes. Now I don't have to waste energy getting pissed off with that defect in online forms any more, and it presumably adds an extra layer of redundancy, a bit more reduction in the probability of a package being mis-delivered.
haha. great irony: the medium.com site showed me a page with a google captcha. I clicked it, and it asked me to identify cars or something. so I just hit the back button, left this comment and realised I did not have to read such a click baity titled article.
I guess captcha before showing an ad-ridden site is 70% of the reason I don't read bad articles. thanks medium-google-cloudflare.
This might be a component, but it is not the real reason why online shopping is behind in Africa. That would be because purchasing power is low, exchange rates are high, and most companies don't trust the system enough to ship to Africa - even for products with relatively high demand.
Many e-commerce companies operate in my country Nigeria and I have never heard that their major complaint centered on valid shipping addresses. The problem exists true,but it is a relatively unimportant one. DHL, FEDEX and other couriers whose principal business is delivery of goods are doing just fine last time I checked.
Purchasing power and disposable income are low across the continent and for those reasons I am personally bearish about the prospects of e-commerce in Africa in the medium term.
[+] [-] teekert|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hden|8 years ago|reply
1. https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-a...
[+] [-] larrik|8 years ago|reply
I recently refinanced, and the lender kept getting hung up on how they needed to "contact my county" for verification. Well, in Connecticut a "county" is nothing more than a name on a map or an organizational method. It's not an actual government entity, there's no one to contact.
[+] [-] StavrosK|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ramses0|8 years ago|reply
When you can pass through 3 states in 3 hours, it makes sense to "search for all McDonalds in NJ". However in TX and CA, "all McDonalds in TX" is worse than useless for what the customer is actually looking for.
[+] [-] BrandoElFollito|8 years ago|reply
We have regions and départements. These are formal structures/entities but are never used in addresses (you get a hint of the département in the zip code).
The foreign web firms do list them, usually correctly. Sometimes they mix up the regions and the départements (usually using île de France, which is a region around Paris, and the rest being départements).
This is not harmful (and ignored during delivery) but shows a one size fits all approach
[+] [-] JeanMarcS|8 years ago|reply
But as stated by others (about Ireland in their example), even companies that had their hq there asked for zip code at a time there was not any.
So I guess if you start shipping internationally, it’s a big job to make a form that fits every cases.
I wonder if someone have made a list of those particularities. Could be a good idea if not.
[+] [-] lagadu|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cr1895|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumby|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] niftich|8 years ago|reply
It's sometimes easy to assume that if something works in sunny California, it will be applicable in Michigan, or Germany, or anywhere on the globe, and for large fractions of the globe this breaks down under scrutiny. After all, one of the attractions of doing stuff "online" is to not be bound by physical constraints, but activities like logistics clearly involves moving around physical goods, and commerce is all about markets, so what works on one market may fail miserably in a second. Even old-hat brick-and-mortar companies make these mistakes, even if they don't skimp on a local consultant.
Anyone who's actually engaged in post or logistics in areas with limited government-maintained addressing knows that communication is essential, delivery places tend to be negotiated on the fly, and knowing how to get to the destination is more important than where the destination is on a globe. Newfangled coordinate-encoding systems don't solve this: intelligence and know-how on the ground does.
Make no mistake, few of the companies with these problems value these markets. If they valued these markets, they would've figured this out.
[+] [-] CM30|8 years ago|reply
See also the falsehoods programmers believe about various things (not even just addresses):
https://github.com/kdeldycke/awesome-falsehood
[+] [-] liotier|8 years ago|reply
Of course, this is only a problem for valuable items (one wouldn't trust postal employees with that) - regular mail in Africa ends in a PO box.
Expecting customers to be map-literate or adopt whichever fancy geographic coordinates keywords landgrab of the month is a bit hopeful and far removed from logistical realities.
[+] [-] lhopki01|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noobermin|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrcii|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Delphiza|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sangnoir|8 years ago|reply
Now that's a head-scratcher! Seriously though, I hate these overbroad generalisations - obviously online shopping does work for some value of Africa. I know of people in Africa who shop, pay for and arrange delivery of second-hand Japanese vehicles all online. It's a multi-million dollar industry.
>..not because of web forms with an ability to capture localised addresses, but because of the lack of affordable, reliable logistics.
Ironically, most African countries have functional postal services that are struggling because WhatsApp has replaced letters. Online shops should partner should partner with postal services instead of trying to "revolutionize logistics" unsuccessfully. Trust me, the logistics are fine: if manufacturers can get their product to even the most remote corners of a country, maybe look into how they are doing it, instead of trying to re-invent it with a phone app.
[+] [-] dmix|8 years ago|reply
> Look at that form. It has things like street address, state/province, zip code? What is that? I can only tell you that I live in Kanyanya, a Kampala suburb. If you need my exact home, then I’ll either have to send you a GPS location via apps like Whatsapp, Telegram, Google Maps or engage you in a long phone conversation in which I’ll try to describe landmarks, building and trees leading to my house. But street address, zip code? Hell No.
I mean GPS coordinates sent by WhatsApp + name + simple description seem like a decent alternative but it too should be standardized then. But it seems bizarre to me to have local governments not attempt to set up a basic system for mail/package delivery.
It's not just bad for ecommerce but all business, law enforcement, and even democracy.
[+] [-] sharpercoder|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Al-Khwarizmi|8 years ago|reply
Finally, I got it to work by typing "Campus of <X> Place, Faculty of <Y> Building". It wouldn't work without the words "Place" and "Building", which we don't ever use (we typically just write "Faculty of <Y>, Campus of <X>"). And the form didn't provide any clue about that being the problem.
The address on a letter has always been a free text input field, it still is when one writes private letters, and everything works fine. Why they have to complicate so much something that just works is beyond me.
[+] [-] sellweek|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] da_chicken|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vezycash|8 years ago|reply
Steps for creating a Plus Code are: 1. Open the Google Maps app. 2. Touch and hold a place to drop a pin on Google Maps. 3. At the bottom, you’ll see an address or a plus code. Tap this section to find all details of the location and copy the plus code.
If the primary use case is creating an address for my current location - e.g. Home. Then, the instructions are too many.
A "click this button" to create a Plus Code for your current location would work wonder.
Or if they had an app, the single instruction above would equally apply.
* I think Plus Codes would fail most Zip Code validation tests.
[+] [-] angarg12|8 years ago|reply
I don't want to sound PC but this is the kind of reasons why more diversity and breadth of life experiences is good for businesses.
[+] [-] jordigh|8 years ago|reply
Sound however you want to sound, and don't listen to those who use "PC" as a derogatory term. I personally prefer to call it "nice" instead of "PC".
[+] [-] liotier|8 years ago|reply
You were in America actually...
[+] [-] netsharc|8 years ago|reply
Japanese addresses also have format not similar to US/European ones: http://www.sljfaq.org/afaq/addresses.html
Google Contacts seems to solve this by just having a big textarea for you to write your contact's addresses, and I guess showing that address in Google Maps is done by just sending the whole thing as a query against their Maps API.
[+] [-] rypskar|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neximo64|8 years ago|reply
This is why you just need a suburb or area and your cell #. You need to be available to sign for packages in African countries and they typically cannot just be dropped off on the porch.
The problem with buying online is just the availability of things is poor, you don't have an Amazon-esque level of availability & websites that do basically buy from Amazon and sell it to you after an extenuating long timeframe.
Ordering from abroad is a hassle because of customs and duties and ridiculous charges such as the SGR levy (for Uganda and Kenya) because of the new rail line (even though the rail line isn't really used for your package). If you order something small like shampoo its likely to cost triple and a minimum of $30 from abroad.
The only great experience I've seen is from takealot. Jumia not so much. Kudos to those guys who run Takealot.
For someone who has lived in Africa the address system, or lack thereof is just something people are used to - it's still possible to find places without an exact numerically marked address. It's likely a dedicated courier who is very knowledgeable on the local areas & landmarks is to drop the package over a postman so it makes little difference.
It's a bit of a shame when these type of articles come up once in a while that distill a "sort of issue" into the prime issue on why it doesn't work. It's not to say proper addresses would help alot, but it's certainly not the reason e-commerce hasn't really taken off. The last time it was a discovery on how a small fan can get rid of mosquitoes - obviously not the reality either.
[+] [-] gumby|8 years ago|reply
But isn’t that what the article says? That a structured address isn’t appropriate and that other means (such as a pick up locator or, as you scribe it, some level of coordination) is what the companies should be using instead?
[+] [-] contingencies|8 years ago|reply
Recently a large number of urban single-use electronic lock postbox providers have emerged, which automate away the inevitable phone calls from time-poor couriers and deliverymen by SMS-ing you a code to your local single use postbox. If you go enter the code, you get your mail. Otherwise, after 24 hours or some exceedingly short time they take it away and your parcel enters no mans land, in which case you have to request redelivery.
[+] [-] Kluny|8 years ago|reply
No street names or numbers, and you have to know what "third roundabout" means to even get started (there are three major roudnabouts in Managua, the third one is the one closes to the lake. And "toward the lake" means "north". It's a single word in Nicaraguan Spanish and it's used in place of the usual Spanish word for "north".
[+] [-] treerock|8 years ago|reply
https://what3words.com/partner/nipost/
[+] [-] outworlder|8 years ago|reply
The british-sounding lady at the other end wanted a zip code. I didn't know of any zip codes and looking at letters in the building's mailbox I could not see anything looking like a zipcode.
She said she could not direct me to a 'nearby' hospital if she didn't have a zip code.
Told her to just pick randomly, that took some convincing. How far could you be from a hospital in Gibraltar anyway?
[+] [-] 4ndrewl|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] staz|8 years ago|reply
Plus Code seems to just be encoded Gps coordinates which seems far easier to integrate.
[+] [-] meritt|8 years ago|reply
Simply using lat/lng or one of these deterministic systems (geohash, plus.codes, etc) is a far superior option for something to be adopted globally.
[+] [-] user5994461|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crooked-v|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JeanMarcS|8 years ago|reply
If the transporter ships directly to your home, you have to be here when he comes (and in France you never really know...).
If you haven’t bought large furniture or fridge or whatever, it’s simpler to go to a shop, it’s open on a wide range of hours.
For the shop owner, it can be a good deal as, well, you are in his/her shop.
[+] [-] kaybe|8 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poste_restante
[+] [-] BrandoElFollito|8 years ago|reply
Another useful delivery man which appeared relatively recently are Amazon Lockers. They have funny names, though (mine is "falafel")
[+] [-] baud147258|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Macha|8 years ago|reply
Instead it's because:
a) enough online shops assume you have one b) advertising mail providers needed it
Frankly if physical spammers need it, then that's an argument against having it to me, and it's sad that online shops forced this by just assuming we had them :(
[+] [-] rwallace|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcb0|8 years ago|reply
I guess captcha before showing an ad-ridden site is 70% of the reason I don't read bad articles. thanks medium-google-cloudflare.
[+] [-] Lordarminius|8 years ago|reply
Many e-commerce companies operate in my country Nigeria and I have never heard that their major complaint centered on valid shipping addresses. The problem exists true,but it is a relatively unimportant one. DHL, FEDEX and other couriers whose principal business is delivery of goods are doing just fine last time I checked.
Purchasing power and disposable income are low across the continent and for those reasons I am personally bearish about the prospects of e-commerce in Africa in the medium term.
[+] [-] sharemywin|8 years ago|reply