We will take a look at another new feature of Connected Business where customers/clients can easily locate and buy items in the actual locations of your store as well as dealers who live nearby. The Store/Location Map allows you to navigate to your desired destination by searching for the address and gives you map directions on how to get there. This webpage uses Google Maps’ innovative map service application that is embedded in Connected Business to help businesses and clients find addresses of a store or dealer within their respective websites.
For a retail business with a number of outlet stores or warehouses, you can easily have a map of your locations by entering the addresses. However, for distribution companies with multitudes of distribution points where you are selling goods across the country, your customers can navigate on the address where they can find dealers near them.
The Store/Location map feature has already been configured to show directly in your website and sets the visibility of your store. If you wish to turn off the store locator, just search for the ShowStoreLocator config in the Application Configuration and set the config value to False.
Once you have your website set up, the Store Locator can be easily accessed through the Customer Service drop down list.
Click Image to Enlarge
After clicking the Store Locator, you will then be directed to a Google map where you can find or locate warehouses and dealers.
You can use the following search criteria to locate warehouses or dealers.
Click Image to Enlarge
A. Store Type - select this search criteria to view the warehouse, dealer or both on a specific state, city or zipcode.
- Warehouse - for a warehouse or store to be searchable, the location should be active or existing. You may go to the Inventory module > Location and select which location you would like to be viewed in the webstore store locator by ticking the Active checkbox. You can also select the locator type for the location, either you want it to be searched as a warehouse or a store.
Click Image to Enlarge
- Dealer - In Connected Business, a dealer must be recorded as a customer. In order to view the dealer’s address in the store locator, the Customer Type and the Show Store Locator options must be properly configured.
To make the dealer visible in the store locator, go to Customer module > Customer > Find Customer and select the customer or dealer. In the Customer Detail form, click on the Setup tab, then tick the Show Store Locator on Web option.
To make the customer a dealer, you must select the customer type as a dealer. Otherwise, it will not show on your store locator.
Click Image to Enlarge
B. Address - specify your search by entering the street address, city, state or zipcode of the warehouse or dealer.
C. Distance (in miles) – you can zoom in or zoom out an address by selecting the number of miles from the drop down list. The higher the number the smaller your view is of the location in a larger scale; the lower the number, the more you can see the location details such as streets, nearby landmarks, etc, of the dealer or warehouse you are looking for.
Click Image to Enlarge
For more information on this feature, please refer to our Store Locator online documentation.