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

[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.)