Distributors
The person searching is usually asking who they are allowed to buy from.
Tell trade buyers and overseas customers which distributor covers their market and which of your lines that distributor actually carries.
Bring your location data
CSV import, Google Sheets sync or dashboard edits.
Shape the visitor journey
Search, filters, hours, directions and custom actions.
Match your site
85+ available settings, markers and provider map styles.
What your network looks like
Wholesalers, importers and master distributors who buy and resell, most with a country or region agreement, minimum order values and their own trade counter, serving trade buyers rather than the consumers your retail list serves.
Why a generic map falls short
A consumer locator is built around here is the closest one to you, and that answers the wrong question for wholesale. The buyer wants the partner appointed to their market with the lines they want in stock, so the useful default is a browsable list by region with the map as support, not an empty map waiting for a postcode nobody outside the country will type.
What visitors need to do
- Browse by country and region, since a buyer in another market wants the right partner, not the nearest pin
- Filter by the product lines or brands a distributor carries, which is never the whole range
- Show trade-only status, minimum order value and whether they export
- Give a named contact and a language, because this ends in an email to a sales manager
How Handled covers it
- A default view you choose, including showing the full list before anyone searches, so an overseas buyer can browse rather than being made to search
- Filterable tags per distributor for product lines, regions served, trade-only and export, with counts beside each option
- Custom fields for minimum order value, contact name, languages and account terms
- Online distributors listed in their own tab and used as the fallback when nothing physical is nearby
- Plain limit worth stating: territories are lists of postcodes, so a market granted as a country or a region cannot be expressed as one yet and stays a tag. Nothing stops a buyer ringing or emailing a distributor outside their market from the card in front of them. An enquiry sent through the locator's own form is different: it is routed rather than addressed, so with no postcode territory covering the buyer it goes to the fallback location you name, which for wholesale is usually your own export desk
Not every distributors business is the same
Export brands appointing importers by country
One partner per market, sometimes one for a region of several countries. The buyer's question is who am I allowed to buy from here, which a postcode box answers badly and a browsable country list answers immediately. Language, time zone and a named contact matter more than a pin, because this always ends in an email to a person.
National wholesalers and master distributors
Large buy and resell partners with regional trade counters, account applications and minimum order values. Their counters serve trade customers who arrive in a van, so the counter's hours and whether an account is needed before the first order are the practical facts a buyer is checking before travelling.
Specialist and technical distributors
Partners carrying part of the range rather than all of it: the commercial line, the hazardous goods, the spares and consumables nobody else wants to hold. Sending a buyer to the nearest distributor who does not carry what they need is worse than sending them further, because they conclude the product is unavailable in their market.
Online and drop-ship wholesale partners
No counter, no catchment, national or wider coverage from a warehouse. They belong on a trade locator but not in a distance-sorted list, since proximity means nothing when everything ships. They are also the sensible answer for a buyer in a region where no partner has been appointed yet.
Setting it up
1. Write the market map before touching the data
Country or region, appointed partner, lines they carry, exclusive or not, and the date the agreement runs to. That document is the source for the locator, not the sales ledger, because the ledger contains everyone who has ever bought a pallet including the ones you would rather buyers did not find.
2. Load by region and line, and show the list first
Tag every distributor with the regions served and the product lines carried, then set the default view to show the full list before anyone searches. An overseas buyer who lands on an empty map waiting for a postcode leaves, and the list is what lets them find their own country.
3. Record the trade terms buyers ask about
Minimum order value, whether an account is required, whether they export, the contact name and the languages spoken go in custom fields. These are the four things that decide whether a first email gets sent, and answering them on the card removes a round trip from every enquiry.
4. Decide whether trade and consumer share one map
Handled holds one locator per account, so either the trade list lives inside your consumer where-to-buy map behind a tag filter, or it sits on a separate account of its own. Choose deliberately now, because retrofitting the split after the data is loaded means loading it twice.
5. Read unmet demand as a distribution gap report
The analytics page reports the rate of searches that returned nothing. For wholesale that is a straightforward list of the markets where buyers are looking for you and no appointed partner exists, which is a better input to the next distribution review than the anecdote from the last trade show.
What to prepare before you publish
You do not need a perfect data system to start. A clean first list is enough to test the visitor journey, then you can keep it current from the workflow that suits your team.
- Location name and address
- Phone, website or booking link
- Categories, products or services
- Opening hours and special hours
- A map provider key
- The page where the locator will be embedded
A market granted as a country is still a tag, not an assignment
Distributor agreements usually grant a country or a region, and that is the one shape Handled cannot hold. Territories are lists of postcodes: useful where a market is written in postcodes, no use for one written as France or the Midwest, because a country or a county cannot be picked by name in the dashboard and no boundary data is loaded outside the United States. So regions stay tags, a trade counter can carry a radius, and a buyer who searches sees whoever matches the filters, including a partner outside their market. Nothing stops them emailing that partner from the card. The enquiry form is the one place ownership is enforced rather than displayed: an enquiry sent through it is routed by the address, so where you have written a market in postcodes it reaches the appointed partner, and where you have not it reaches the fallback location you set. Filtering and a sensible default view get most brands close enough, since the buyer usually picks their own country.
Questions we get asked
Can we stop a trade enquiry reaching a distributor outside their appointed market?
Partly, and the part that works is worth setting up. An enquiry sent through the locator's own form is routed by the address rather than addressed by the buyer, so where a market is written in postcodes it reaches the appointed partner, and where no territory covers the buyer it reaches the fallback location you name, usually your export desk. What cannot be stopped is the direct route: a buyer reads a card and rings or emails the partner on it, and no locator prevents that. Territories are also lists of postcodes, so a market granted as a country stays a tag rather than an assignment, since a country cannot be picked by name in the dashboard. Most brands get close enough with region tags, a list-first default view and the form switched on.
Can an overseas buyer browse distributors by country instead of typing a postcode?
Yes, and it should be the default here. Set the locator to show the full list before anyone searches, and tag every distributor with the regions served, so a buyer scans for their own market immediately. An empty map waiting for a postcode nobody outside the country would type is how wholesale enquiries get lost.
Can we show which of our product lines each distributor actually carries?
Yes. Product lines are tags with counts beside each option, so a buyer filters to the partners holding the range they want before distance is considered. Sending someone to the nearest distributor who does not carry their line is worse than sending them further, because they conclude the product is unavailable in their market.
Can minimum order value and trade-only status be shown on a distributor card?
Yes, through custom fields: minimum order value, whether an account is needed before the first order, whether they export, the contact name and the languages spoken. Those are the facts that decide whether a first email gets sent, and answering them on the card removes a round trip from every enquiry.
Can the trade distributor map and the consumer where-to-buy map share one account?
Only as one locator. Handled holds a single locator per account, so either the distributors live inside the consumer map behind a tag filter, or the trade list gets its own account and subscription. Choose before loading, because splitting the two later means loading the data twice.
What does a distributor locator cost for a brand exporting to twenty markets?
Twenty markets rarely means many pins, so most exporters sit on the $19 a month plan at 200 locations, with $39 and $79 covering 2,000 and 10,000. The 7 day trial takes no card, there is no free plan afterwards, and annual billing is ten months' money for twelve. Your own Mapbox or Google Maps key means map usage is billed by the provider at their rates.
If you need something that is not here
Handled is small enough to build to order. If your trade needs a field, a filter or a behaviour the locator does not have yet, say so and we will tell you honestly whether it is a week away or not something we will do.