Urgent optimization of the address form for international shipments required
Summary: ab82yz raises a technical problem when creating shipping labels, which can lead to delivery errors for international shipments, especially to Spain or Italy. They criticize the fact that the street and house number field is limited to 35 characters, which leads to misunderstandings in how address data is interpreted. They suggest that eBay should improve the input form to enforce a clear separation of address components and introduce automated validation systems to avoid errors. They call on eBay to communicate more clearly how address additions should be entered correctly.
I would like to raise a technical issue today regarding the creation of shipping labels, which has a high potential for avoidable delivery errors and returns. For international shipments – especially to Spain or Italy – additional address details such as staircase (Escalera), floor (Planta), and door/apartment (Puerta) are a mandatory part of a correct delivery address. However, since the “Street and house number” field is technically limited to 35 characters, two critical risks arise when entering addresses: on the one hand, downstream logistics systems often mistakenly interpret the last digit in the line as the house number instead of correctly assigning the building details. On the other hand, if such entries are incomplete due to the length limit or are formatted incorrectly, they inevitably lead to incorrect deliveries.
In my view, eBay, as a platform that actively sells shipping labels, should ensure that the data transmission to logistics providers is error-free. It is not up to date to simply leave the user on their own with an error message when an address is too long. Instead, the system should be designed so that a clear separation between the street with house number and the address suffix is enforced. The use of automated address validation systems would also be a necessary standard in order to catch and correct errors at the point of entry. Why does eBay not consistently communicate the need for separate address suffix fields and prevent the mixing of building details with the street and house number, so that unnecessary misdeliveries caused by misinterpreted address data are ruled out from the outset?
