With an ever-expanding curated collection of exclusive products and escalating customer-base, ThinkGeek adopted PCA Predict’s (formerly Postcode Anywhere) Capture+ as an important component to its website. The service was deployed In July 2014 after a rigorous period of testing.

Capture+ validates addresses as the user types which is radically different to the standard post-entry verification method adopted by the US market. CIO Steve Weiskircher said: “The main reason for us choosing a solution that validates addresses on entry, as opposed to post-entry validation is that it made much more sense. The experience speeds up the customers’ address entry while also cleansing the data. Since this occurs at input we do not need to add more friction to the checkout process by validating on form submit and then prompting the customer again. Capture+ mitigates the problems associated with raw data such as inaccuracies and reformatting errors.”

ThinkGeek felt it was an important to validate customers’ addresses because the fees associated with mail delivery failure was very costly as well as the negative impact that results in a poor customer experience. Customers are naturally disappointed when their parcels (consignments) do not arrive, and it costs the vendor company (consignor) additional money to make it right. The process of having to resend something increases the postage cost to fulfil the order on top of having to pay address correction fees to the carrier or return postage fees for an undeliverable package.
There are also other bottom line costs associated with reshipments - such as customer service time and warehouse repackaging costs. Additionally there are other costs that maybe less easy to determine. For example customer alienation, which is not necessarily isolated to a handful of customers as they are likely to share a bad experience with friends and family.

ThinkGeek has recently been acquired by GameStop - the US’ biggest gaming company. Last year (2014) their revenue hit $140.7 million up from $118.9 million in 2013.

Like every expanding ecommerce business ThinkGeek has had to look at how it improves its customer journey. Deploying Capture+ in its website was a critical part of that improvement to ensure that existing customers benefit from a good experience and new visitors to its website will return.

ThinkGeek’s customers definitely benefit from receiving a more efficient and quicker online buying process as Capture+ reduces keystrokes and mitigates addressing errors which ultimately result in failed door step deliveries.

ThinkGeek conducted a thorough A/B test prior to the service’s deployment and Capture+ was a clear winner increasing RPV (revenue per visitor) by roughly 1 – 1.3%; highly significant when measured against its commercial success.

Capture+ has also helped ThinkGeek to optimise its mobile site, where typos were previously problematic. This has helped to alleviate frustrations customers experienced when trying to type addresses on smaller screen keyboards.

Capture+’s international capabilities means that ThinkGeek has access to a breadth of coverage (both US and the rest of the world). Using just one search box, Capture+ presents the addresses in the correct format and language for that country and even translates English too. This is an important factor for a company wishing to increase its market presence and reassures the customer that their address has been captured accurately and in the correct format so that their order will arrive.

To summarise, Steve commented: "It simply works and works well. It was straightforward to implement and has reduced mail delivery failure and ultimately improved the customer's experience significantly.