How to import a store list and put every store on the map

Most brands already have a store list. It came from a distributor, a broker, or a sales rep's spreadsheet, and it has a retailer name and an address on every row. That file is enough to put every store on your Where to Buy map. This guide covers what the file needs, what the preview tells you before anything is written, and what to do about the handful of addresses the map lookup can't find.

What the file needs

Upload a CSV or an Excel file (.csv or .xlsx), up to 10 MB and 5,000 store rows per import. If your list is longer, split it; each file imports on its own.

Four columns are required: Retailer (or Name), Address, City and State. Without those, a row can't be filed under a retailer or keyed to a place. The importer also reads ZIP, Phone, Status, Store ID, Store number, Store name, Latitude and Longitude when they're present.

You don't have to rename your headers. The importer matches them by meaning, ignoring case, spaces and underscores:

A column called Name means the retailer when it stands alone, and means the store's own name when a Chain or Banner column is also present. A bare column called Store is deliberately not read, because it could be a number or a name, and reading it wrong is worse than not reading it.

State takes a two-letter code or a full US state name. Status accepts active, inactive or pending, and also 1, 0, yes, no, open or closed. Latitude and longitude are read as a pair; a row with only one is treated as having no coordinates, and so is a row with 0,0. A header that appears twice refuses the whole file rather than silently keeping the last column. Rows that duplicate an earlier row in the same file are dropped, first one wins.

There is no template to download. A spreadsheet with those headings is the template.

Step 1: open the importer

Open Locations. If you're an admin, the header has a button labelled "Import from a file", which takes you to the Import / Export page and scrolls to the card called Import locations. Click "Choose CSV or Excel file…" and pick the file. The button reads "Analyzing…" for a moment.

Nothing is written at this point. The importer reads the file and shows you what it would do.

Step 2: read the preview

The preview opens with one sentence: how many stores are in the file, then how many it would add, update, leave unchanged, skip, or reject with errors. Under it, a few notes when they apply. It names any retailers the file would create. It tells you when a store in the file is already reported by a feed, in which case the import attaches to that location so you can edit it. It says how many stores have no map coordinates, which is normally all of them. And it lists any columns it didn't read, with the words "Not imported" in front of them, so you know a Website or Category column went nowhere.

Three expandable lists follow: Rows with errors (these won't import), each with its line number and what's wrong; Skipped rows, with the reason; and Will add / update, showing the retailer and address of every store it would create and, for updates, which fields would change.

An error row doesn't block the rest. Those rows are left out and everything else imports, which is what the button will do when you click it.

Step 3: tick the products these stores carry

Under the preview is a box headed "These stores carry… (optional)". It lists your active SKUs with a search field. Tick the products that every store in this file stocks. If the whole list is the retailer's distribution of one product, tick that one.

This matters more than it looks. A store that doesn't carry a product won't appear on Find Us at all, so a list imported with nothing ticked puts stores in your account but not on your map. You can link products per location afterwards, or import the same file again with products ticked, but ticking now is quicker. Carriage the stores already have is kept; nothing is removed. Discontinued products and foodservice packs never show on Find Us, so they aren't offered.

Step 4: import

Click "Import stores". The button reads "Importing…" and then a green line summarises what happened: so many added, updated, already up to date, plus any new retailers and how many store-and-product pairs were marked as carried.

Then the map placement starts on its own. The stores that arrived without coordinates are sent to the address lookup in batches of 500, and the status line counts up: "Placing stores on the map… 500 of 1,200." The lookup is the US Census Bureau's geocoder, which is free, covers US addresses, and lets us store what it returns. When it finishes you get one of two lines. Either every store was placed, or "Placed 1,180 stores on the map. 20 addresses could not be found; add latitude and longitude on those locations to place them."

Importing the same file again changes nothing, so you can re-run a corrected file without creating duplicates. A changed row updates the store in place.

What to do when an address can't be found

A store without coordinates is still in your account and still shows in the Find Us store list, but it has no pin, and it never appears in a radius search, because there is nothing to measure the distance from. Fixing it is a two-minute job per store.

Open Locations, find the store, and open it. In the Address card there are Latitude and Longitude fields. The note under them says it straight: coordinates drive the map pin, and nothing on the form geocodes an address. Find the coordinates yourself. In Google Maps, right-click the store's position and the first line of the menu is the coordinate pair; click it to copy. Paste the two numbers into the fields and save. Once both are filled, an "Open in Google Maps" link appears under the fields so you can confirm the pin landed where you meant.

An address the geocoder can't find is usually one it doesn't know: a new road, a shopping centre name where the street should be, or a suite number in the street field. Correcting the address in your source list helps next time; the coordinates fix it now.

Why a store still isn't on the map

Three reasons cover nearly every case.

The store carries no product. Link one on the location, or re-import with products ticked.

The store's status isn't Active. Only an Active location appears in the public embed. The status field is on the location form.

You looked too soon. Find Us can take a few minutes to show changes.

Once the stores are on the map, the Where to Buy locator is one pasted block away, and a Kroger feed can layer live shelf status on top of the same stores. If you're still deciding, create a free account and import the list you already have. The preview costs nothing and tells you what shape your data is in.