Astore locator(or商店发现者）是一个网站（或应用程序）功能，允许客户查找零售商的物理网点 - 或任何具有人们可能需要访问的现实世界的组织。但是，今天，随着谷歌地图等外部工具的流行，许多用户转向它们的位置相关的查询，而不是使用公司的网站。

借此依赖外部映射工具，您仍然需要您网站上的商店定位器吗？是的！您应该包含此功能的原因有几个原因：

  • Even after using an external tool, users may turn to your site to confirm details such as business hours, holiday closings, or location-specific amenities.
  • 人们may need to locate a store as their next step in the shopping process, after they are already on your site.
  • A locator tool and store-detail pages support accurate indexing and display of your location information on external mapping tools.

There’s a tension between individual websites and web-dominant titans like Google. On the one hand, you definitely can’t assume that people will remain locked into your site to get information about your services. But, on the other hand, external sites will often offer substandard information about you. And, most important, if users do turn to an external service when they were already on your site, there’s a great risk they’ll never return. The higher the quality of your internal tools and the better discoverability of these tools, the lower the risk of losing business.

在我们的ecommerce studies, several participants wanted to find the nearest physical location of a store as their next step within a larger task. Common places where people turned to the locator tool included (but were not limited to):

  • 产品上市页面
  • 产品或服务细节页面
  • Shopping-cart and checkout pages
  • Customer-service pages, such as FAQ or return-policy pages

Product-Listing Pages

While a lot of shopping does happen completely online, many shoppers在线开始研究过程，但亲自完成购买。（在线脱机组合是一个关键元素omnichannel customer journeys。）因此，允许用户只看到特定商店中可用的产品的工具有助于个人购买者，以避免在研究不在本地可用的项目的投资时间失望。此功能特别有助于对人们倾向于亲自购买的唯一物品（如植物）或其他产品。

For example, one study participant was shopping for shrubs on Home Depot’s website. She searched for “shrubs” and then noticed that the local-store information displayed on the page did not match her preferred location. She changed her store and then filtered the displayed products using theShop items in-storeoption。

Home Depot网站：产品列表页面显示了商店位置可用性过滤器。
Home Depot：过滤器选项Shop Items In-Store允许用户将产品列表缩小到仅在附近，所选位置可用的产品列表。

目标移动应用程序还有一个商店过滤器，并直接在页面上突出显示在顶部标题区域中。过滤器菜单中提供所有其他产品过滤器。暴露有存货filter makes it discoverable for users who would otherwise not realize the filter exists, as well as readily accessible to those who know about it and want to utilize it often.

Target mobile app: Product-listing pages displayed a prominent filter for store-specific items at the top of the screen.
目标移动应用程序：产品列表页面显示有存货直接在页面顶部的特定位置过滤，而不是隐藏在筛选器菜单下。

产品和服务详细信息页面

我们研究中的参与者的另一个常见场景正在寻找从特定服务或产品详细信息页面存储信息，以确定附近的位置是否提供该服务或有货的物品（因此允许它们避免运输延迟和收费）。

着名的鞋类网站展示了一个明显的Choose Your Store上方的选择Add to Cart产品细节页面上的按钮。这种位置使得能够高度可发现和primed没有计划在商店中拿起物品的人考虑这样做。

Famous Footwear website: a product detail page included the option to pick up the item in-store.
Famous Footwear: The radio buttonChoose Your Store for Free In-Store Pickup Options允许用户确定哪些本地商店有现货的特定产品。

Shopping-Cart and Checkout Pages

许多公司现在允许客户在线订购并在商店位置免费拿起物品。此选项在寻求避免运输成本或在商店中找到合适的产品的时间很受欢迎。如果购物车页或结账时的送货步骤包括存储定位器工具的链接（通常在模态内呈现，以防止用户退出结账过程），用户将能够轻松地选择所需的商店来挑选他们的物品。

The Hallmark mobile website included an option toPick up in store FREEfor each product on the shopping-cart page. A participant shopping for a Christmas ornament noticed this option and clicked the contextual linkFind a storeto search for a nearby location in order to save the shipping cost.

Hallmark mobile site: the checkout page included the option to pick up in-store.
Hallmark mobile site: Options to either ship each item to an address or to pick up in store for free, along with a link labeledFind a store, were displayed for each product shown in the shopping cart. This design made the feature discoverable. Listing the option for each item meant that users could opt to get some things in store and ship other items in the same transaction.

Customer-Service and Content Pages

Lastly, think about other tasks that might involve finding a location and provide links to the locator tool on those pages that support the tasks. For instance, after looking up information on how to return a purchase, users may want to search for a nearby store if the item can be returned in store. An in-line link to the store finder from the return-policy content would ease that transition.

Urban Outfitters提供多个圣的链接ore finder from the return-policy page. This approach ensures that users will find the locator link when needed, regardless of where on the page they begin reading to find the answer to their question.

Urban Outfitters Return Policy page.
Urban Outfitters: The返回+交换page featured in-line locator links within content explaining that customers could return items in person, whether the items were purchased online or in store.

常问问题页面通常也是将用户转向定位工具的合适位置。例如，当研究如何在FedEx网站上打印帆布上的照片时，一项研究参与者通过常见问题解答来读取打印帆布服务的常见问题解答，并在问题的答案内找到了定位器的链接Where do I go to find out how to print on canvas?When the user clicked the locator link, he got a list with only those locations that offered the printing service — a nice touch!

FedEx在适当的情况下包括常见问题解答中的文本链接。
FedEx：常见问题的答案有关去哪里了解特定服务的帖子包括指向定位器的链接，并应用了相应的服务过滤器。

Conclusion

Even though people often rely on external mapping tools when they search directly for a certain location, store locators are still a useful website feature: they support users who are already on the site, engaged in a task that may have a location component — such as shopping or researching for items that they may want to purchase in store. Anticipating this need by providing contextual links to the locator or specialized store-location features (such as the ability to filter for items currently available at a certain store) supports people’s complex shopping processes and moves them closer to completing their goals, while also being aligned with the organization’s business goals.

Full Report

More guidelines for the design of locator tools can be found in our full197-page reporton商店查找器和定位器。It is published as a volume within theEcommerce User Experience报告所有t系列但包括设计的建议ypes of sites with real-world locations.