Seeking a bolt-on "Find My Nearest" feature.

I am planning a website that will require a "Find My Nearest" feature in which
the Postcodes of various businesses are compared to the customer's Postcode,
and the nearest 3 or 4 Businesses are displayed (I'm UK based). I have come
across what sounds like just the right sort of bolt-on thing at
www.postcode.org.uk but it costs ?400, and that's a recurring annual expense.
Can anyone recommend a cheaper, or free, alternative?
I have some slight familiarity with PHP/MYSQL.
Thanks.

There isn't in the UK. Our US cousins are fortunate to have this information
as public domain but here there's always going to be a fee because the Post
office owns the address file and charges for access. Alternative if you only
have to deal with known postcodes you might (be careful) be able to scrape
some data from an existing site. £400/year isn't a bad deal.

"smiffy47" <webforumsuser (AT) macromedia (DOT) com> wrote

I am planning a website that will require a "Find My Nearest" feature in
which
the Postcodes of various businesses are compared to the customer's
Postcode,
and the nearest 3 or 4 Businesses are displayed (I'm UK based). I have
come
across what sounds like just the right sort of bolt-on thing at
www.postcode.org.uk but it costs ?400, and that's a recurring annual
expense.
Can anyone recommend a cheaper, or free, alternative?
I have some slight familiarity with PHP/MYSQL.
Thanks.

Jon Spivey wrote:

There isn't in the UK. Our US cousins are fortunate to have this information
as public domain but here there's always going to be a fee because the Post
office owns the address file and charges for access. Alternative if you only
have to deal with known postcodes you might (be careful) be able to scrape
some data from an existing site. £400/year isn't a bad deal.

I think there are some that charge per postcode lookup, but you buy a
block of them in advance.

Dooza
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"Dooza" <doozadooza (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote

I think there are some that charge per postcode lookup, but you buy a
block of them in advance.

Right. It sounds like he's looking to start some sort of directory service -
in which case he wouldn't want to pay per lookup. 90% of people would be
just browsing around. The key is to get volume - for a flat fee. Paying per
look up would be suicide

If I was starting something like this and couldn't find the £400 I'd
localise it and write a scraper. Find sites that already have a post code
look up and pull in their data - carefully :-)

[q]Originally posted by: Newsgroup User
Jon Spivey wrote:

There isn't in the UK. Our US cousins are fortunate to have this information
as public domain but here there's always going to be a fee because the Post
office owns the address file and charges for access. Alternative if you only
have to deal with known postcodes you might (be careful) be able to scrape
some data from an existing site. ?400/year isn't a bad deal.

I think there are some that charge per postcode lookup, but you buy a
block of them in advance.

Dooza
--
Posting Guidelines
http://www.adobe.com/support/forums/guidelines.html
How To Ask Smart Questions
http://www.catb.org/esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
How To Report A Bug To Adobe
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform
[/q]

I have used http://www.postcodeanywhere.co.uk/Default.aspx

Very comprehensive set of features.

You buy in blocks of inquiries, so the costs scale to your sites usage.

Chris.

smiffy47 wrote:

I am planning a website that will require a "Find My Nearest" feature in which
the Postcodes of various businesses are compared to the customer's Postcode,
and the nearest 3 or 4 Businesses are displayed (I'm UK based). I have come
across what sounds like just the right sort of bolt-on thing at
www.postcode.org.uk but it costs ?400, and that's a recurring annual expense.
Can anyone recommend a cheaper, or free, alternative?
I have some slight familiarity with PHP/MYSQL.
Thanks.

Thanks, Chris. That does look interesting. And, at first glance, a good deal cheaper.
I'll explore further when I'm more fully awake tomorrow.
Now I'm off to see "Milk".
Regards.