Understanding Address Verification Statuses in Warehance

When an order comes into Warehance, the shipping address is automatically checked against the USPS address database. This process — called address validation — helps catch bad addresses before a shipment is created, reducing failed deliveries, carrier surcharges, and customer service issues.

Previously, addresses in Warehance were simply marked as "verified" or "not verified." We have replaced this with a more detailed address validation status that tells you exactly what happened when the address was checked, and what action (if any) is needed.

What Are the Address Validation Statuses?

There are five possible statuses an address can have:

validated_commercial

The address was successfully verified by USPS and is identified as a commercial location (e.g., a business address, office building, or warehouse).

• No action is required.
• The address is ready for shipment.
• The address may have been standardized (e.g., abbreviations corrected) during validation.

validated_residential

The address was successfully verified by USPS and is identified as a residential location (e.g., a home or apartment).

• No action is required.
• The address is ready for shipment.
• Some carriers apply a residential surcharge for deliveries to residential addresses. This status is what triggers that distinction.

warning

The address was validated and the primary street address is confirmed, but there is an issue with the secondary address (apartment number, suite, unit, etc.).

This status covers two scenarios:

• Secondary address present but unconfirmed — USPS confirmed the street exists, but could not confirm the specific unit or apartment number provided. The package may still be delivered, but there is a risk.
• Secondary address missing — USPS confirmed the street exists and it is a multi-unit building (e.g., an apartment complex), but no unit number was provided. Delivery may fail without a unit number.

What to do: Review the order's ship-to address and confirm or add the apartment, suite, or unit number with the customer if possible. You can still ship the order, but there is an elevated risk of failed delivery or return.

error

The address could not be verified by USPS. This means USPS does not recognize the address as a valid deliverable location.

Common causes:

• Street address does not exist (typo, fictional address, etc.)
• Invalid ZIP code
• City, state, and ZIP code do not match
• Address is completely missing required fields

What to do: When an order has an error status, Warehance will automatically place the order on an Address Hold, which prevents it from being shipped until the issue is resolved. You will need to correct the address before the order can proceed.

Orders on an Address Hold will not be picked up for batch shipping or carrier rate lookups until the hold is removed. Removing the hold requires either correcting the address or enabling Ignore Address Validation Errors on the order.

not_verified

The address was not checked against USPS, or the validation service was temporarily unavailable when the order came in.

This status is applied in the following cases:

• The order's destination is outside the United States — Warehance only validates US domestic addresses through USPS at this time. International addresses will always show not_verified.
• The USPS validation service experienced a temporary outage or rate limit issue when the order was received. Warehance will automatically retry these orders.
• Address validation was manually skipped on the order (e.g., Ignore Address Validation Errors is enabled).

What to do: For US addresses showing not_verified, Warehance runs an automatic retry process that re-checks these orders every hour for up to 36 hours. If an address is still not_verified after that window and the order is domestic, you may want to manually review the address.

For international orders, not_verified is expected and does not indicate a problem.

How Address Validation Affects Order Flow

What Happens to the Address During Validation?

When USPS successfully validates a US address, Warehance standardizes the address using USPS's official format. This may include:

• Abbreviating street types (e.g., "Street" → "ST", "Avenue" → "AVE")
• Correcting capitalization
• Filling in or correcting the ZIP code or ZIP+4
• Correcting minor spelling variations in city names

The original name, company, phone number, and email on the order are always preserved — only the address fields themselves are updated.

Bypassing Address Validation

In some cases, you may want to ship an order even if the address could not be verified. You can enable Ignore Address Validation Errors on an individual order to remove the Address Hold and allow the order to proceed regardless of the address status.

Use this option carefully. Shipping to an unverified address increases the risk of failed delivery, package return, and carrier address correction fees.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does my international order show not_verified?

Warehance currently uses USPS to validate addresses, which only covers US domestic addresses. All international orders will show not_verified — this is expected and does not affect your ability to ship the order.

My order is stuck on Address Hold. What do I do?

Go to the order and review the ship-to address. Correct any errors (wrong ZIP code, missing street number, etc.) and save. Once the address is updated, Warehance will re-validate it. If the address now passes validation, the hold will be automatically removed. Alternatively, you can enable Ignore Address Validation Errors to manually override the hold.

The address looks correct to me but it's showing error. Why?

USPS validation checks addresses against their official deliverable address database. Some valid-looking addresses may still fail if:

• The ZIP code does not match the city/state
• The street number is outside the valid range for that street
• The address is a new development that hasn't been added to USPS records yet

If you are confident the address is correct, you can enable Ignore Address Validation Errors to ship anyway.

What is the difference between validated_commercial and validated_residential?

Both mean the address is fully verified and ready to ship. The difference is whether USPS identifies the location as a business or a residence. Some carriers (such as UPS and FedEx) charge a residential delivery surcharge for deliveries to residential addresses, so this distinction affects your shipping rates.

Will Warehance automatically fix my address if it finds an error?

Warehance will standardize addresses that pass validation (correcting abbreviations, formatting, etc.), but it will not guess or fabricate corrections for addresses that fail validation. If the address cannot be confirmed, it is flagged as error and placed on hold for you to review.