How To Pick The Right Store Locator For Your Brand

People need to be able to find you. It’s up to you as a brand to make it as painless as possible for potential customers to locate your products near them (or request it on WeStock if you aren’t in their area yet). Before you go and get set up on the first store locator you can find, let’s walk through a few options and talk about which one might be the best fit for your specific brand.

Why Do I Need a Store Locator

This seems like a natural place to start the conversation, having a “why” is so important when determining which store locator is right for you. Especially if you are an up-and-coming brand you might not see the immediate value of a store locator, there are several reasons why no matter the size of your brand a store locator is a must:

1. They can help cut down unnecessary phone calls, emails, and DMs about availability (not 100% but will help).
2. Having a store locator on your site can help increase your website traffic.
3. From an SEO perspective, it can boost you higher in local searches.
4. You know we love data around here so one of the most important aspects is the data collection and analytics so you can see areas people are searching.  
5. It also means that customers can quickly and easily find your product near them-talk about a win-win.

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For Established Brands

Destini is the cream of the crop when it comes to store locators and the largest company in the game. But, due to pricing, it can be unapproachable for most emerging brands, making it a better option for larger, more established CPG brands.

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Destini uses SPINS data to automatically update where your product is being sold by measuring scan data. Every time your product is scanned inside of a select retailer, the store locator updates. This is critical since most store locators can be difficult to keep updated. There is nothing worse than getting an angry email from your customer because your store locator said something was available when it wasn’t. Destini also has a ton of features and add ons that make it a robust solution outside of just being a store locator. The issues mostly come back to price and the three-year minimum contract, but if you have the budget then this might be the right store locator for you.

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For Emerging Brands

Don’t fret if you aren’t ready for Destini yet, there are two other store locators that are a great fit for startups, up and comers, and emerging CPG brands.

1. NearestYou
2. Nearest You has many features but their store locator, in particular, is a great, user-friendly option. It can be easily embedded on your site to match your branding and design needs and is mobile optimized so customers can find you on their phone too.
3. You simply upload the sales data that you are currently getting from your retail, distributor, and broker partners and NearestYou turns it into a comprehensive store locator for your brand.
4. NearestYou also has a few other options that provide added insights and data for emerging brands.
5. Where to Buy
6. Where to Buy brands itself as the “Modern Store Locator” for good reason. They use third-party data to populate their locator and the data provides a robust picture of where to find your product.
7. Where to Buy includes online grocery shopping as well to reach the modern shopper and has all the typical bells and whistles of any good store locator.
8. Where to Buy also has added data features around customer interaction while supporting over 200 retailers.

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It’s time that people know where to find you, make it as easy as typing their zip code into a box. Let us know what store locator you use or if you go with one of these what you think.

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