An online locator service (also known as location finder, store finder, or store locator, or similar) is a feature found on websites of businesses with multiple locations that allows visitors to the site to find locations of the business within proximity of an

address An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used to give the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along ...

postal code A postal code (also known locally in various English-speaking countries throughout the world as a postcode, post code, PIN or ZIP Code) is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal a ...

or within a selected region.Henriette Martel-Lawso
200 Marketing Ideas for Your Website
Marketing Cues, 2004 , p. 183 Types of businesses that often have this feature include chain retailers,

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

s, restaurants, and other businesses that can be found in multiple metropolitan areas. The locator also provides important information about each location, including its address, phone number, hours of operation, services provided, and sometimes directions to the location. On many sites, searches can be narrowed to locations providing certain services not provided at all locations (e.g. 24-hour operation, handicap accessibility, pharmacies). Location finders often operate in conjunction with a well-known online map service, such as

Google Maps Google Maps is a web mapping platform and consumer application offered by Google. It offers satellite imagery, aerial photography, street maps, 360° interactive panoramic views of streets ( Street View), real-time traffic conditions, and rou ...

MapQuest MapQuest (stylized as mapquest) is an American free online web mapping service. It was launched in 1996 as the first commercial web mapping service. MapQuest vies for market share with competitors such as Google Maps and Here. History MapQuest's ...

, or Bing Maps, allowing the user to see on a map where the particular location is found on a map.

Software

Store locators use ''locator software'' in order to allow visitors to find nearby stores and business locations. In a common form, a visitor inputs a ZIP code and the locator returns all locations in a

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases s ...

within a specified

radius In classical geometry, a radius ( : radii) of a circle or sphere is any of the line segments from its center to its perimeter, and in more modern usage, it is also their length. The name comes from the latin ''radius'', meaning ray but also the ...

. It is often used in conjunction with mapping/driving direction software on

brick and click Omnichannel retail strategy, originally also known in the U.K. as bricks and clicks, is a business model by which a company integrates both offline (''bricks'') and online (''clicks'') presences, sometimes with the third extra ''flips'' (physica ...

corporate website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Wikipe ...

s to help customers locate a physical business location. Some online locators determine user location from the user's IP address, rather than asking a user to input his or her location. The company utilizes IP geolocation software from

Digital Element Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits. Technology and computing Hardware *Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals **Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...

to power the “My Local Ace” section of its website. Based on a site visitor’s location, the website can show the visitor how many stores are in their area, as well as a city-level locator map to help the customer find the store closest to their address.Chain Store Age, “Making it Personal”, November, 2008
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References

{{reflist Retail processes and techniques Digital marketing Geographic position