How Swiftcomplete helped Simba reduce 'wrong delivery address' data fails by 40%

Simba is proud of its delivery performance and deeply focused on customer service excellence. As part of its ongoing commitment to continuous improvement, the team at Simba HQ reviewed the areas that cause delivery failures and found that ‘Wrong Address/Address Not Found’ was one of the biggest culprits. While only affecting a small percentage of orders, it had increased since 2024.

For a business delivering bulky products that often require customers to be at home, the risk of a failed delivery matters. Poor address data can create avoidable operational costs and make the delivery experience tricky for both customers and carriers. Simba wanted to solve that early in the journey, at checkout.

Simba noticed that the data from Google Autocomplete was contributing towards them collecting wrong addresses. So, they decided to switch to an address validation tool with more accuracy.

Michaela Pearson, Head of Operations & Logistics at Simba shares , “Since implementing what3words and Swiftcomplete, we have reduced our Wrong Address/Address Not Found fail rate by 40%, which means more customers are getting a great night’s sleep sooner!”

Why wrong address fails are so costly for bulky home deliveries

Simba’s products are bulky by nature, so deliveries need to run smoothly. Customers are often waiting in for a planned delivery, and there is less flexibility than with a standard parcel drop.

When address data is incomplete or inaccurate, costs can rise quickly. Return fees, storage costs and additional pick and delivery fees all add up. Just as importantly, poor address data can affect customer sentiment and the delivery experience.

For bulky home deliveries in particular, even small address errors can create disproportionately high cost and disruption.

Standard address autocomplete isn’t enough

When Simba looked more closely at its ‘Wrong Address/Address Not Found’ fail category, it became clear that this was not simply a final-mile issue. It pointed to an address data quality gap at checkout.

Standard autocomplete tools such as Google Autocomplete can make address entry faster, but they do not verify whether an address is complete, accurate or actually deliverable. That distinction matters .

The gaps are most visible when:

• postcode details are missing
• the wrong postcode is matched
• entire addresses don’t appear – especially new-build or or multi-residential addresses

For retailers, that creates risk. Bad data can enter the workflow early, then surface later as failed deliveries, extra manual handling and avoidable exceptions.

How Simba improved checkout address capture for delivery operations

To improve address accuracy at source, Simba switched from Google Autocomplete to Swiftcomplete using the Shopify plugin .

This gave Simba a better way to verify addresses at checkout, reducing the chance of poor-quality data entering the delivery workflow. Swiftcomplete also includes what3words as standard, giving customers another way to share precise address information.

That precision is useful operationally, not just at checkout. Simba’s trusted delivery partners, including Furdeco, can also use what3words addresses in the final mile, helping them find customers more reliably, especially in harder-to-locate places.

Moving to Swiftcomplete as an address validation solution is a no-brainer

Swiftcomplete includes broader address data as standard. In the UK, Swiftcomplete includes Not Yet Built data , multi-residence data and what3words addresses , in addition to Royal Mail PAF data. Retailers can also give customers a choice of address entry: postcode, street address and what3words address for additional accuracy.

Michaela explains why Simba chose to adopt Swiftcomplete and what3words:

“We are proud of our market leading delivery performance generally, however as part of continuous improvement activities, we conducted a deep dive into our main fail areas and saw that those attributed to ‘Wrong Address/Address Not Found’ had increased since 2024.

Our products are bulky by nature and require customers to be at home for delivery, so poor address data quickly turns into high operational costs (return fees, as well as additional storage, pick & delivery fees add up!) & most importantly negatively impacts customer sentiment.

Working with what3words & Swiftcomplete meant that not only could we verify addresses at checkout incredibly accurately, we could also pass exact geolocations to our trusted carriers to aid them in finding our customers, especially those in the remotest areas.”

What retail operations teams can learn from Simba

For retail operations teams, especially those managing bulky or attended deliveries, it’s worth using Swiftcomplete from what3words.

• Checkout address validation has a direct impact on delivery performance
• Address quality should be treated as an operational efficiency lever
• Retailers with bulky, attended or high-cost deliveries have the most to gain

You can install the Swiftcomplete app on the Shopify App Store . Access our simple instructions here .