Thread: Adding UK States

Hello, we sell to the USA, Canada and also the UK, how can I add UK States in the drop options? do you recommend this or is there another way? please help, thank you.

JG

You can add those by going to Configuration -> Taxes -> States/Provinces menu in the admin. See this manual

Hi

There is little point in adding UK states (counties) as they can be manually added by the customer in the last address line. They are not needed to effect a delivery to the UK. Remember its a little place and the Postal Code is sufficient to get the goods delivered.

Al

We need States /counties/ provinces regions without the need fora breavations in the cart for the world. Anyone selling out side the US needs this.

ASPDTSF is great, but, outside of the US we have problms for thsi cart. In a right thinking world just adding the state to teh address field would be OK, you should not need a States field. nay leave it out, for even the US. But if you deal witha s many customers as we do, and you don't ask for the complete address, you can bet 10% of the time, you won't get it. And tehn spend a morning sorting out the mess, chasing couriers, postal sevices and the like. So, no state? Not wise. We need States /counties/ provinces regions in the cart for the world. At the moment they are not there and when you put them in, the cart wants a 5 character limit abrevaition for the region. Only if the US is the world does that work. Meantime, even if you populate state field with States /counties/ provinces regions the abbrevation usaully does not exist for that countreis region/state

i belive the 5 char limit is there for RTShipping, but...

I know that many countries don't have abbreviations for the regions. Yet, for example, the cart insists that the UK does, and that they are 3 digit. Its nonsense. In real common use, as far as I can work out, abbbrevs are used in 2 digit form only in the US and not too much any where else. I confirmd thsi with our UK based couriers.

I think the 5 char filed needs to be used for RTShipping and a written State field abbrev. for the confimation be added. Thus giving 5 char limit for RTShipping as needed without messign up the worlds regions. Please I beg, would love this. Martin

I just glanced at the main database script, and UK counties are added to the States table, starting on line 12617. (I'm looking at a v8.0.1 script):

Code:

    INSERT [dbo].State(CountryID,Name,Abbreviation,DisplayOrder) values(@countryid,'Alderney','ALD',1)
    INSERT [dbo].State(CountryID,Name,Abbreviation,DisplayOrder) values(@countryid,'County Antrim','ATM',2)
    INSERT [dbo].State(CountryID,Name,Abbreviation,DisplayOrder) values(@countryid,'County Armagh','ARM',3)
    INSERT [dbo].State(CountryID,Name,Abbreviation,DisplayOrder) values(@countryid,'Avon','AVN',4)

   <etc ...>

You don't have that script?

There have been other posts on this subject. We don't have states in the UK and forcing counties/administrative areas into the constrained drop down in ASPDNSF is not a good fit

The script contains counties which were abolished 13 years ago (e.g. Avon) and I understand three more "counties" were created this month (in Cheshire?)

I live in "the county of" North Somerset (created in 1996), but Royal Mail excludes it from my address and uses Bristol instead which is my nearest postal town

We have taken the route of removing/hiding the states drop down from all pages (there are many to be changed) and letting the customer enter their own address

What would be great would be an AppConfig to show/hide States in the standard product....

Originally Posted by weblingo

There have been other posts on this subject. We don't have states in the UK and forcing counties/administrative areas into the constrained drop down in ASPDNSF is not a good fit

The script contains counties which were abolished 13 years ago (e.g. Avon) and I understand three more "counties" were created this month (in Cheshire?)

I live in "the county of" North Somerset (created in 1996), but Royal Mail excludes it from my address and uses Bristol instead which is my nearest postal town

We have taken the route of removing/hiding the states drop down from all pages (there are many to be changed) and letting the customer enter their own address

What would be great would be an AppConfig to show/hide States in the standard product....

I really have to second this, as fantastic as ASPDotNetStoreFront is, it really does let itself down when it comes to shipping options/configuration for anywhere outside the US

In the UK counties are of no interest to the couriers, it is only the first part of the postcode they are interested in, it would be great if technical could get a grip of this and create a fix once and for all in future releases...

The next version has an Address User Control that provides a bit more intelligence for enterning addresses, not just for UK address, but worldwide.

I wasn't aware that Counties weren't required by the couriers. Is this also the case in Ireland (Republic of)?

Jon

Unfotunately in Ireland they do not use Postal Codes, so the County is extremely important.

Al

Nice

Thanks for the information.

Biggest prob is htat many UK counties don't shrink down to 5 chars as the cart we have us do. Cart outputs them in a form no one in the UK would understand. I agree with last psot that oftern provided the postcode is there couriers don't give a flyin' for the county, but if we can get a cust. to supply it, county can still be an indicator nonetheless. We ahve for example I think, 5 x St.Ives in the UK. If the postcode is wrong, which one did the cust mean without a county?

I LOVE this cart, but it is still very US-centric, with language kits not being addressed and non-US counties, states & Provinces not existing without mamoth typing jobs. Try selling worldwide with this cart in differetn langs & currencis as it promises and you soon come badly unstuck. UK postcode lookup would be great too. For those that don't know. Ask a cust for their postcode and then the street number and you can nail an address to a few yards. (we use 'em in SatNav here for that reason) very usefula and why UK couriers don't worry about counties so much. Whereas I understand US zips don't narrow it down to much less than half a city.

Originally Posted by omaxuk

Whereas I understand US zips don't narrow it down to much less than half a city.

The first 5 digits of the zip code does only narrow it down only to a city, or part there of. however, US zip codes in 1983 began using 4 additional digits (XXXXX-XXXX) and then the building/house is more exactly determined. Few people use or know their Zip+4, as it's commonly called, however.

Jon you wrote on:

INSERT [dbo].State(CountryID,Name,Abbreviation,DisplayOrder) values(@countryid,'Alderney','ALD',1)
INSERT [dbo].State(CountryID,Name,Abbreviation,DisplayOrder) values(@countryid,'County Antrim','ATM',2)
INSERT [dbo].State(CountryID,Name,Abbreviation,DisplayOrder) values(@countryid,'County Armagh','ARM',3)
INSERT [dbo].State(CountryID,Name,Abbreviation,DisplayOrder) values(@countryid,'Avon','AVN',4)

<etc ...>

The trouble is the abbr as much as anything. Use of counties is still best to ahve if you can. Agreed our Post office/Royal Mail don't use counties as they used to, but the 3 char . abbrevaion is not undertsood eg: 'County Armagh' cannot be abbrev. to ARM. Ask anyone living there where ARM is and you'll get a 'blank'. Our devs did a mod for thsi, but sorry don't ask me what it was? Equally when i last looked, any state or province outsied the US didn't exist. We ahd to go round the world with atlas in hand, and type these in.

Interseting you point about US zips. Here is a UK postcode, usually six chars. HU9 3NH (mine) it'll narrow you down to a few houses. If ZIPS don't really locate the address (as used) and the +4 isn't (used), how do you use them? As I unserstand it, half of say LA is on 2 or 3 zips? We use your ZIPs now, because, we ahve the field in the cart, but in selling to the US, are they really needed?

The problem is that there are 195 countries in the world (give or take a few at any given time it seems these days), each with different rules, requirements, postal systems, constantly changing local subdivisions, etc. etc. etc. We can supply these out of the box, but I would suspect it would be "up to date" for about a week before someone added/deleted something, and then we catch flak for not paying attention

In any case, if anyone has a good resource for UK counties, abbreviations, shipping rules, etc. I wouldn't mind taking a look at it.

Originally Posted by omaxuk

UK postcode lookup would be great too. For those that don't know. Ask a cust for their postcode and then the street number and you can nail an address to a few yards. (we use 'em in SatNav here for that reason) very usefula and why UK couriers don't worry about counties so much.

Its relatively easy to integrate a postcode lookup service into aspdnsf - they all get their data from the Royal Mail. All you need is entry fields for the house number and the postcode (eg 27 B1 2JP), and the software returns the full postal address, including whatever county the RM thinks the address is in.

Downside......for a small business is probably cost prohibitive.......£1500-£2000 p.a.

195 countries . I'm still adding counties around th world to stop the NonUS default. I've been on htis for days. Not good. Should be in the cart, even if liste a littel out of date.

I understadn there are comapnies tha you can subscribe to. Thus, get thsi data on a blow-by-blow click basis. We're palnning to do thsi soon. 2-300 a year. Small company though. to own it is too rich for us. Anyone already done this one?

Annoys me though, our postcode data si something we should all have access to as part of 'UK plc' intellectual property. It saves fortunes in msidirected mail. satnav, couriers etc etc. It should not be owned. Just like the BBC its ours to use for all that pay UK taxes and subsidises (as we do, or did) the Royal Mail. Rant over.

We are trying to collect addresses to ship to Japan. Using the existing fields is fine; however, aspdnsf tries to force you to select a state. Any thoughts?

Jon

Unfotunately in Ireland they do not use Postal Codes, so the County is extremely important.

Al

yep, I also was wondered when we had realized that. In that project we had to add additional class because of that