Put You and Your Products on the Map

Add a store locator to your website in minutes with Blipstar

Every month over 170,000 people use a store locator created with Blipstar. Sign up and let potential customers find you today.

How it works

Upload or input your store or product information	»	Customize your store locator's appearance	»	Integrate with your website using one line of code

Provides an easy way for customers to find you
First 25 locations - FREE
Attractive mapping and driving directions
Mobile-ready
Hosted app integrates directly into your site
Display phone, website, opening times etc
Use with Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, Facebook

Create your Store Locator

A store locator lets your customers enter a zip/post code, address or place name and get a list of your nearest stores or products, complete with attractive interactive mapping and driving directions.

Blipstar is the simplest way to enhance your website with a fully-featured store locator. It's simple to set up, easy to use and provides an invaluable service for existing and potential customers. And there's no software to download or install.

Just create a free account, input some address data and choose one of several ways to integrate it with your site. Your locator will work with smartphones, tablets, laptops and PCs and is fully customizable.

Blipstar is also really, really fast. We've spent a long time optimizing the viewer code and it weighs in at a staggering 18Kb. This means your store locator loads in milliseconds and one of the reasons why it's been awarded an exceptionally high YSlow Grade of 99% (YSlow is an industry-standard web page speed metric from Yahoo and the average score is 75%).

Creating a Google Maps style store locator has never been easier, better value or more, dare we say it, fun. Or, for total flexibility, Blipstar Server allows you to install, maintain and customize your own store locator. Users of the original tool can still access Blipstar Basic via the link below.

Blipstar Features

Mapping

Street level mapping for over 200 countries
Return nearest X stores, or all stores within a certain radius, or US state
Search by keyword
US zip codes, Canadian zip codes, UK and European postcodes, Australian postcodes, New Zealand postcodes
Search in miles or km or by US state
Turn by turn driving directions
Special smartphone view - ideal for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows
Auto-locate mode - uses GPS/wifi to determine a user's position
Pop up map window showing address, phone number, email, website, product tags, plus up to three custom fields of your choice
Text only mode (when no map required)

Customization

Change colors, text, labels, fonts, sizes, layout
Add custom logos and icons
Assign higher priority in results to certain locations
WordPress store locator plugin available
Filter results by product or user-defined tags
Import data in Excel (XLS, XLSX) or CSV format
Export data in CSV or KML format
Easy to incorporate into your Facebook page
Compatible with Content Management and e-Commerce Systems
Easy to create your own front end to interface with Blipstar
Works with sites written in HTML, PHP, ASP, Perl, Python
Can be used with HTTPS

Account

No coding knowledge required
Fully hosted solution. 99.9% uptime
Nothing to download, nothing to install
Most cost-effective service on the market
Also ideal as a product locator, sales rep locator, or any other type of locator
Access your account from anywhere with a standard web browser
Analytics module - analyze where people are searching from, including smart heatmaps and KML export
"Quick" functions - add,edit and delete stores in seconds
Protect your data by limiting the number of searches per IP
Fast, friendly support

About Blipstar, the Store Locator Solution

Background
Store locator software provides a convenient way for existing and potential customers to find which of your stores/shops/dealers etc. is nearest to where they live (and how they can get there). They simply enter a zip code, post code or address and the store locator finds the nearest store locations (within a given radius) and plots them on a map. Store locators and Branch locators are a popular feature of many websites but setting up an effective online store locator from scratch takes time and effort.

Blipstar is born
So in August 2006, the original Blipstar was born, an online store locator service designed to greatly simplify this process - it does the hard work for you! You create an account, upload a spreadsheet of store information (name, address, phone number etc.) and set up some design options. Blipstar then creates your store locator tool and and you simply need to link to it from any web page. No programming experience is required and you don't have to download or install anything on your website. Blipstar makes use of the excellent Google Maps to provide attractive background mapping and driving directions. It worked and people were generally happy with it but after a few years it started looking dated and the underlying technology had been pushed pretty much as far as it could go. Looking back on it, as my first major web app I learned alot and, as always, with hindsight would have done lots of things differently. So a completely new product seemed the way to go and the original Blipstar became "Blipstar Basic".

Blipstar Plus - the next generation Store Locator tool
Blipstar proved popular and many businesses and organisations (of all sizes) have set up online store locators using the original Blipstar. Three key things people asked for was the ability to

save more stores
make the store locator look more like their own website
use it as a locator tool for things other than stores

So Blipstar Plus was created in response to this, allowing 1000s of store locations and providing a wide range of options for customization, including the ability to integrate the store locator directly into the customer's website.

New features are continually added and the site underwent a revamp in late 2011. Improvements included a flexible keyword search, search by US state, text-only search, SmartSearch, a raft of new customization options and integration within Facebook. Plus Quick Add, Quick Edit and Quick Delete functions for making fast changes to your data. A major upgrade - Blipstar Plus v2.0 - was released in December 2012 with a raft of new features and a contemporary look. Every aspect of setting up a store finder has been enhanced or tweaked to make the process even simpler. We hope you like it.

Blipstar Server - store locator software for developers and programmers
Some advanced users wanted even more control over their online store locator and not have to rely on a third-party. Blipstar Server was therefore released, a "host-your-own" product effectively allowing a customer to set up their own store locator on their website and expand and customize it to meet their exact requirements. This separation from Blipstar Plus meant that Plus didn't get bogged down in too many features that weren't relevant to most users, but gave developers infinite flexibility. Server is very much a niche solution and Blipstar Plus is the best option for the vast majority of users and organisations. That said, most users have been able to set up Blipstar Server in minutes rather than hours.

Looking forward to the future
Blipstar will continue to be developed to keep up with the latest HTML tricks and techniques and ever growing range of devices. A key focus is on marketing and getting the word out to small and medium sized businesses who would benefit from a simple store locator. Watch this space for the latest Blipstar developments!

Legacy user? Blipstar Basic login

How it works

Blipstar Features

Blipstar Server - you're in control

About Blipstar, the Store Locator Solution