Ideas
ecommercelocalizationpostal

International address parsing as a service

APIs that handle the weirdest global address formats without requiring perfect formatting, starting with Japanese postal codes.

Why now

E-commerce globalization is stuck on address validation that assumes Western formats.

Who for
Global e-commerce platforms
Business model
Pay-per-use API
Effort
A few months

Japanese postal codes contain geographic hierarchy that most parsers discard. Multiply this across dozens of special cases worldwide.

Offer an API that not only parses messy international addresses but extracts hidden structure (prefecture from Japanese codes, municipality from Mexican RFCs etc).

Charge e-commerce platforms per lookup to reduce failed deliveries.

Start with Japan + 2 other complex systems.

Risk: Requires native speakers for many edge cases.

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International address parsing as a service — Ideas