Thomas Schutz

Retail e-commerce sales continued to skyrocket in 2011. While seemingly great news for retailers, it does create additional inefficiencies in a fulfillment system and drive up operational costs. To prevent those costs from cutting into revenue, retailers need to make sure they're running as efficiently as possible. One way to improve fulfillment efficiency is through accurate contact data.

Experian QAS released a new benchmark report on the data quality practices of top online retailers. The report reveals that 72 percent of the top 100 retailers are using some form of address verification during online checkout. "Year over year, we are seeing the incidence of real-time address verification growing among retailers," said Thomas Schutz, senior vice president, general manager of Experian QAS.