Zip codes are not, strictly, numbers; and why this matters

[unixronin]

I just sent — or, tried to send — this message to an online spice vendor via their contact form, after discovering that their order form treats zip codes as numbers.

Dear [vendor],

You have a serious problem on your web order form that will prevent anyone in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, or Puerto Rico from ordering from you, as well as any military personnel ordering via an APO.

You see, all these states/territories have zip codes with a leading zero.  Your site allows the correct zip code to be entered, but saves it as a number, not as a string.  That means you lose the leading zero.  My zip code, 03249, becomes 3429 er, 3249.  So when the site tries to match billing and delivery information against credit card billing address information for an order from one of these states, it will never match, because your stored zip code is wrong.

This error is costing you sales from seven states with a combined population of 23 million people.  I strongly suggest you may want to fix it.  (I was trying to order an 18oz jar of Hungarian hot paprika.  I won’t be able to order it from you, until and unless you fix this bug.  How many other sales have you lost this way?  Do you know?  Do you know you’re losing them?  How many abandoned shopping carts do you get per month?  How many of them are abandoned because of this bug?  These are questions you need to know the answers to.)

I say “tried”, because the contact form doesn’t work, insisting that you need to enable Javascript to send it.  (Javascript is enabled.)  They also urge you to “give us a call at [phone number]” if you “have a burning question you need the answer to right now”.  The only problem is, the number they urge you to call is listed elsewhere on the site as their FAX number.

Web store quality control FAIL.

Comments

[kayre]

Huh, I've got one of those zip codes, but hadn't thought of this problem. You can get your paprika from Penzey's, I've ordered from them with no problems, and love their spices!

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'd have preferred to just pick up a new 5oz tin of Pride of Szeged from the local supermarket. But we've been looking for months, and there doesn't seem to be a supermarket chain in a seventy-mile radius that carries it.

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

They carry that brand but not that specific item. One can get the steak rub, the chicken rub, the pork rub, and the fish rub but that's it. Can't just get the paprika.

[mazianni.livejournal.com]

One time, a cash register jockey at some store asked me for my zip code. I told her it was 49635. She thought I was bullshitting because she believed all zipcodes started with 0.

Of course, these same people believe that anything between I95 and Los Angeles is a grey mist, marked on maps with the legend "Here be there dragons."

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

Ugh. That attitude irritates me to no end. I call it "the rednecks start at the Hudson".

[elegantelbow.livejournal.com]

Interesting. Also, no one can ever purchase from them from Canada -- where zip codes involve letters as well as numbers.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I didn't try entering a ZIP+4. I suspect that would break too.

[otherbill.livejournal.com]

I can imagine: "Wait, this zipcode has eight digits! WTF?!?"

[tww1fa]

The spice must flow... except to New Hampshire.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

It'll just have to flow from elsewhere in future. I ended up calling them at a working number to report the problems, and they asked if I wanted to place the order by phone, so I did. You'd have thought they'd offer some kind of appreciation for catching a problem this major ... but nope.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I recall my mother reporting her attempt to mail something to Maine. Quoth the clerk, "Is that in the United States?"

Maybe they had the same problem?

[bikergeek.livejournal.com]

New Mexico is one that call-center folks often have trouble with. Also, I used to live in Delaware, and a lot of people had trouble believing that Delaware was really a state and not just a legal fiction created for tax purposes. (Some astonishingly large number of US corporations are incorporated in Delaware, because of that state's favorable incorporation laws and the existence of a near-unique-in-the-US system of Chancery Courts to decide matters of equity.)

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

Let me go one further on this....

I get so very angry at sites that claim to let you ship internationally, but then provide exactly 5 spaces for a numeric zip code. Or banks/credit card companies that have no way to enter a new address that is outside the U.S. because of the postal code issue. Hell, even the hospital I visited in Arkansas this past fall had no way to enter the address of someone that was living in the U.S.

Drives. Me. Crazy.

[rbos.livejournal.com]

I run into that all the time. :/

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

This is what the Internet is for! Develop friendships with people in different countries and then swap care packages. :-)

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

:) I know, but I just hate bothering folks. There's always additional shipping and they have to take it to the post office, etc.

[laurarey.livejournal.com]

Oh, and make that last bit "that was NOT living in the U.S."

bad typy-typy

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I figured that.... :)

[anda.livejournal.com]

FWIW, I'm fond of http://www.worldspice.com and hope that's not the site that was giving you trouble. ;)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Nope, it was some outfit in Maryland called Vann's Spices or something like that.

Incidentally, worldspice appears to have only sweet paprika. The problem with the hot paprika in the first place is that it's hard to find. As far as I can tell, there are only two brands of real Hungarian hot paprika sold in the US — Pride of Szeged, and Bende. I think I bought my Szeged somewhere in the Bay Area in 2005, and just finished up the tin late last fall.

[mrmeval.livejournal.com]

Who is it? You need to start a webidiot fail blog.

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

I recall having a conversation about this some twenty years ago -- back in the days of dBASE III -- when I explained to someone that if you're not going to do arithmetic on it, it's not a number and should not be stored as such. She blinked and understood, and she wasn't even a programmer.

Any "programmer" who stores identifiers as numbers just because they consist of numerals should be condemned to twenty years behind the counter at McDonald's.