If you sell through retail stockists, your customers are searching for where to buy your products in person. Right now, they are guessing, calling stores, or giving up and buying from a competitor who makes it easy to find.
A store locator page fixes this. It shows customers exactly which shops carry your products, how far away they are, and when they are open. And you do not need a $30/month plugin to build one.
What You Need
You need three things: a list of your stockists with addresses, a free map tool, and about 45 minutes. No coding experience required.
Step 1: Build Your Stockist List as Structured Data
Open a spreadsheet and create these columns for each stockist:
- Store name
- Full street address
- Phone number
- Opening hours
- Website URL
- Products stocked (which of your items they carry)
- Latitude and longitude (you will get these in step 2)
Be specific about which products each store carries. If a customer drives 20 minutes to find your bestseller is not stocked there, you have created a worse experience than not having a locator at all.
Step 2: Geocode Your Addresses
Go to a free geocoding tool like the one at geocod.io or use Google Sheets with the Geocoding add-on. Paste each address and it will return latitude and longitude coordinates.
These coordinates are what make the map work. Without them, you just have a list of addresses that customers have to copy and paste into Google Maps themselves. That is not a store locator. That is a chore.
Save the coordinates back into your spreadsheet. You now have everything the map needs.
Step 3: Build the Map with a Free Tool
The fastest free path is Google My Maps. Go to mymaps.google.com and create a new map. Click the import button and upload your spreadsheet. Google will ask which columns contain the location data. Select the latitude and longitude columns.
Your pins will appear on the map instantly. Click each pin to edit the title and description. Add the store name, address, hours, phone number, and which products they stock. Keep descriptions short. Customers are looking at this on their phone while walking.
Set the map to public. Copy the embed code.
Step 4: Create the Page on Your Store
In your store admin, create a new page called Find a Stockist or Where to Buy. Keep the URL slug clean: /find-a-stockist or /store-locator.
At the top of the page, write one sentence that tells customers what they are looking at. Something like: Find our products at these retailers across Australia. Below that, paste the Google My Maps embed code.
Below the map, add a text list of all stockists grouped by state or city. Some customers prefer scanning a list over interacting with a map. Give them both options.
Step 5: Make It Mobile-Friendly
Open the page on your phone. The map should fill the screen width without horizontal scrolling. If it does not, wrap the embed code in a responsive container:
Wrap the iframe in a div with style width 100 percent and height 400px. This forces the map to adapt to any screen size.
Test the tap targets on each pin. If they are too small to tap accurately on mobile, reduce the number of details in each pin description so the pop-up stays compact.
Step 6: Add a Call to Action Below the Map
Below the map and stockist list, add a short call to action. If you also sell online, link to your shop page. If you want customers to call ahead before visiting a stockist, say so. If you are looking for new stockists, add a wholesale inquiry link.
This page is not just a directory. It is a bridge between online browsing and in-store buying. Give it a purpose beyond showing pins on a map.
Step 7: Keep It Updated
Set a monthly reminder to check your stockist list. Stores close. Stockists drop brands. New stockists come on board. An outdated store locator is worse than none at all because it sends customers to shops that no longer carry your products.
When a stockist discontinues your brand, remove them immediately. When a new stockist signs on, add them within 48 hours. The page should always reflect reality.
What to Avoid
Do not list stockists without addresses. A list of store names with no location data is useless to a customer trying to find your products.
Do not bury the link to your store locator. Put it in your footer navigation and in your main menu. If customers cannot find the page, the page does not exist.
Do not use a PDF list of stockists. PDFs do not work well on mobile, cannot be searched, and feel like they were made in 2009. A map and a clean text list are all you need.
How to Know It Is Working
After two weeks, check your page analytics. Look at how many people visited the store locator page and how long they stayed. If you see visitors spending more than 30 seconds on the page, they are using the map to find a store.
Ask your stockists if they have noticed an increase in customers asking for your products. That is the clearest signal the page is doing its job.
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