Pet brands
The bag they need may be behind a vet counter, not on a shelf.
Point owners at the pet shops, feed stores and veterinary practices that carry your food, including the prescription lines they cannot buy off a shelf.
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
Independent pet shops, groomers with a small retail wall, country and feed stores, and veterinary practices, plus a few grocery chains that take only the dry range.
Why a generic map falls short
Pet retail hides half its stock. A prescription diet is dispensed at a practice counter, frozen raw needs a freezer the shop may not own, and a map that treats every pin as a shelf you can walk up to sends a worried owner to the wrong door.
What visitors need to do
- Mark which stockists hold the prescription or veterinary diet, since those sit behind a practice counter and are dispensed rather than picked up
- Show which shops have freezer or chiller space, because the raw and frozen range only exists where there is one
- Give veterinary practices their consulting hours rather than shop hours, so nobody drives over at seven in the evening
- Keep the pack sizes visible, because the owner of a large dog is looking for the 12kg sack and not the trial pouch
How Handled covers it
- Filterable tags per location for prescription lines, frozen and raw, pack sizes and species
- Opening hours per location with a live open-now status, so a practice's consulting times are the times shown
- Custom fields for the things a pin cannot say, such as counter service or order-in only
- Online stockists in their own tab for the owner who buys the same sack every month
Not every pet brands business is the same
Veterinary practices and prescription diets
A practice dispenses the therapeutic range at a counter, after a consultation, and often orders the bag in rather than holding it. Its hours are consulting hours. An owner whose dog has just been put on a renal diet is not shopping, they are trying to find the nearest place that can supply it this week, and they need to see that difference before setting off.
Raw and frozen feeding
The frozen range only exists where there is a freezer, which rules out most of the shops carrying your dry food. Raw feeders plan around that: they buy in bulk, they know which shops hold which proteins, and they will drive past three stockists to reach the one with chest freezer space. Freezer capacity is the filter that decides the journey.
Independent pet shops and groomers
Small retail walls with room for a handful of lines, usually chosen by an owner who met your rep at a trade show. Groomers stock shampoo and treats and nothing else. This is the part of the network that changes constantly, and the part your field team wants to correct from a phone between visits.
Feed stores and country retailers
Agricultural merchants and country stores sell the big sacks, keep rural hours and serve customers who will happily drive twenty miles for a 15kg bag. Their catchment is nothing like a high street shop's, and the pack sizes they carry are usually the ones a town centre pet shop will not stock.
Setting it up
1. Mark what is dispensed and what is stocked
Go through the account list and flag every veterinary practice, because those locations behave differently from shops in almost every way: consultation first, counter service, order-in, consulting hours. Everything you configure afterwards depends on that column existing.
2. Import and tag by range, species and pack size
Load the list as a CSV or keep it in Google Sheets with sync on. Tag each location with the lines it holds: dry, wet, frozen and raw, prescription, plus species and the pack sizes stocked. Freezer and prescription are the two tags owners will reach for first.
3. Fill in hours location by location
Practice consulting times, feed store weekend opening and a groomer's four day week are all different from a standard shop week. Hours drive the open-now filter, and in this trade being sent somewhere shut is the complaint that reaches your inbox.
4. Add the online stockists and publish
Repeat orders for the same sack usually happen online, so put those sellers in their own tab. Then embed the locator on your where to buy page and point the QR code on the pack at it, because that is where an owner scans when the bag runs low.
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
Questions we get asked
What does a pet food store locator cost to run?
It starts at $19 a month, after a 7 day free trial that needs no card. There is no free tier afterwards. The map key is yours: you add a Mapbox or Google Maps key and the provider bills you directly for map usage, so we are not reselling it to you.
Can I mark which stockists dispense the prescription or veterinary diet?
Yes. Tag veterinary practices and the therapeutic range separately from ordinary retail, and add a custom field saying the food is dispensed at a counter after a consultation. Owners then filter to the places that can actually supply the diet.
How do I show which pet shops have freezer space for the raw and frozen range?
Freezer capacity works as a filterable tag on the location, alongside the proteins or pack formats held. Raw feeders use that filter first, because a shop with no freezer is not a destination for them no matter how close it is.
Can a veterinary practice show its consulting hours instead of shop hours?
Yes. Opening hours are set per location and drive a live open-now status, so a practice can show consulting times, a groomer can show a four day week, and a feed store can show its weekend opening.
Can owners filter pet stockists by species or pack size?
Yes. Tags are free text you define, so species, life stage and pack sizes all work as filters. The owner of a large dog looking for a 12kg sack sees only the shops that hold it, not every shop that stocks a trial pouch.
How do I keep a pet stockist list current when reps are visiting shops every week?
Keep the list in Google Sheets and turn on sync. Whoever visits the accounts edits the sheet, and the changes are shown for review before they publish, so a week of field corrections lands in one checked batch rather than one row at a time.
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.