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How to Structure a UK Address and Postcode

Postcodes have existed in the UK for over 50 years now. It’s hard to imagine how our postal service operated before they existed. But how many of us truly understand what our postcode means or the importance when sending things in the post?

There’s nothing more frustrating than your post going missing, especially if you’re a business that sends out products it can waste time, money and resources trying to fix failed deliveries and find missing post. But it can easily be avoided. 

When sending mail to a UK address you need to provide a full and accurate address, complete with postcode. The purpose of the postcode is to enable the Royal Mail to sort your post quickly and accurately.

In this blog post we show you how UK addresses and postcodes are structured so you can make sure you maximise the chances of a successful delivery. 

The UK Address  

Below is a breakdown of each part of your address:

3X Software Ltd

(Addressee Name/Business Name)

Suite 3, Penrhos Manor

(Building number/name)

Oak Drive

(Street name)

Colwyn Bay

(Postal Town)

Conwy

(County)

Wales

(Country - only required for international post)

LL29 7YW

(Postcode)

Addressee Name/Business Name 

We need to know who your post is going to so the first line should always be the addressee. If your post is going to a business you might just use the business name.

Building Number/Name and Street Name

The next line of the address is the building name or number and the street or road name.

If your property has a name, it is most commonly entered as a standalone line before the street name. For example:

3X Software Ltd Headquarters,

Oak Drive,

Etc.

Be aware that in the UK not all buildings or houses have numbers, some only have house names and some might have both a name AND a number! Usually if the address is numbered the street name is on the same line of the address. But if it only has a name it’s on a separate line from the street name. Take a look at the example below to see what we mean. 

23 Princes Drive,

Penrhos Manor, 

Oak Drive

Postal Town, County and Country

Next you need the postal town of your address. Make sure you include this as there are lots of duplicated street names in the UK. Equally important is the county. Counties are geographical and administrative sub-divisions of the UK. Many English countries end in -shire which is the older historically equivalent word for a county. 

And did you know that the United Kingdom is actually made up of 4 countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? If you’re posting from outside of the UK you’ll need to add the country but domestic post doesn’t require the country. 

Colwyn Bay

(Postal Town)

Conwy

(County)

Wales

(Country)

 The Postcode      

The numbers and letters which make up a postcode may seem random at first, but each is significant and vital to differentiating addresses accurately. 

The 3 sections represent your area, district and street in order to make your location easily identifiable via postcode lookup. Usually the postcode is split into 2 parts. The first and second section are written together then there’s a space before the last section.

Here’s a breakdown of each section of a UK postcode:

LL

The first 1 or 2 letters represent the postcode area that you live in

LL29 

The second part indicates the postcode district that you live in

LL29 7YW

The final part of the postcode identifies the unit/Street that you live in

Common Address Mistakes

Common mistakes include putting your postcode before your county, or melding two separate address categories into one like, like so:

3X Software Ltd,

Suite 3, Penrhos Manor,

Oak Drive

Colwyn Bay, Conwy,

LL29 8HT  

It might not seem important but incorrectly formatted addresses can cause problems in delivery so make sure you’re as accurate as possible when addressing post. 

Still not sure about UK addresses?

Did you know The Royal Mail keeps all its addresses in their Postcode Address File database (known as the PAF) for short. Between four and five thousand records are updated each day, making it by far the most reliable UK address database system. At the time of posting the database holds over 1.7 MILLION postcodes and over 31 MILLION delivery points. 

Addresses and postcodes can be unnecessarily complicated but Postcodes4U provides a simple solution. If you need further information about postcodes, or want to check addresses against the most reliable address database in the UK, visit www.postcodes4u.co.uk

We utilise the Royal Mail's Postcode Address File in order to provide the most up-to-date and accurate address information available in the UK. 

We also create easy to use plugins for e-commerce platforms and provide solutions that ensure your business is always able to use the most accurate up to date address information. 

Find out more here and try it out for free with 30 free search credits to get you started. 

 

How to Improve E-commerce Customer Satisfaction

According to the Office of National Statistics most recent figures the UK’s e-commerce sales were £668.9 billion rising by over 29 billion from 2018.

Many businesses have started trading online or increased their focus on e-commerce as a response to the pandemic in the last few years. But with so many businesses now online we need to make sure that customer satisfaction is taken into account to ensure repeat custom. 

What impacts customer satisfaction?

Many things impact customer satisfaction in e-commerce such as how easy your site is to use, the price and quality of your products and your customer service. Most of those things are completely within your control which is great news as you can put strategies in place to improve customer satisfaction straight away.

However, e-commerce businesses still need to post out products which is where hand over the control and put our trust in the postal system to safely deliver our customers items. Which is sometimes where things go wrong.

Customer Satisfaction and Delivery

Delivery has a big impact on customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, as the Royal Mail say on their own website, “sometimes things go wrong”. Even though the delivery part of our business is often out of our hands consumers will still leave with a bad taste in their mouth if they have a bad experience when trying to receive their purchases. 

And can you blame them? Is there anything more infuriating than getting excited to receive your order and it taking longer than you expected because of delivery problems or even lost?!

Why do deliveries go wrong?

In Royal Mail’s defence, they perform a thankless task. There are a myriad of things that may go wrong in the delivery process. One of the biggest causes of mis-deliveries is incorrect addresses. Addresses can be complicated to format, especially in the UK and if written or formatted incorrectly it can easily cause post to go missing.

In 2019 the Royal Mail received over 578,000 complaints. That’s a lot of post that’s gone missing and a massive impact on e-commerce businesses. But the good news is that even though you can’t hand deliver all of your items yourself there are some easy ways you can maximise the chances of a successful delivery. 

How can Postcodes4U Help?

One simple way to minimise this problem and increase customer satisfaction is by using an address lookup service in your checkout process so that customers can provide a validated delivery address in a trusted, official format. Postcodes4U can help you do just that. We use the Postcode Address File (PAF®) from the Royal Mail which is the most up-to-date and complete address database in the UK containing over 31 million addresses. 

We have plugins available for most e-commerce platforms to install immediately and you can get started with 30 free search credits. You can also contact us if you need a custom integration created for you completely free of charge. 

So get in touch and don’t hesitate to make this easy change that could drastically improve your customer satisfaction.