Set up your club's vendor directory
The vendor directory is a page on your club site listing the shops, specialists, and suppliers your members actually trust — the restoration shop that did a good job, the appraiser who understands club cars, the transporter who shows up on time. Each vendor gets a profile with contact details, and members can rate them and share what happened when they used them. You build it from the Vendors tab on your club site.
What members get
The directory opens with your own heading and subheading, then a filter chip for each category (with a count), a search box, and a card per vendor showing its cover image, name, categories, star rating, and a short description.
Opening a card shows the full profile: an About section, a Contact panel with website, phone, email, and address, and a Visit website button.
Before you start
- You need to be a club owner, co-owner, or admin.
- Sketch your categories first. They're the directory's filters, so a handful of broad ones beats twenty narrow ones — think Restoration & Bodywork, Parts & Spares, Transport & Storage, Insurance & Appraisal.
- Collect each vendor's website, phone, email, and address before you start adding, so you're not saving half-finished profiles.
Step 1 — Name your directory
Open your club site and click Vendors in the club navigation. As an admin you'll see a pencil beside the heading — click it to open Vendor Directory settings.
Under Page heading, set the Heading and Subheading members read at the top of the page. Write a heading that sounds like your club rather than a label: Vendors our members trust reads better than Vendor Directory, and the subheading is the place to say what's in the list and who it's for. Click Save when you're done.
Step 2 — Add your categories
Categories live in that same Vendor Directory panel, under Categories. Type a name into Add a category… and click Add; remove one with the × on its chip.
Categories are the filter chips across the top of the directory, and every vendor needs at least one. A vendor can carry several — a shop doing both paint and bodywork appears under both, which is why the chip counts can add up to more than your total vendor count.
Step 3 — Add a vendor
Click + Add vendor on the directory. Three fields are required:
- Vendor name — the business name as members would say it.
- Categories — pick at least one; click more than one if they apply.
- Description — what they do and why members recommend them. This shows on the vendor's profile page, and the first couple of lines appear on the card, so lead with the useful part.
Then fill in as much of the rest as you have:
- Website, Phone, Email, and Address — these become the Contact panel. The address is also what makes a vendor findable for members searching by area.
- Social links — another website or profile, Facebook, and Instagram.
- Cover image — one photo, drag-and-dropped or selected. Accepted formats are JPEG, JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF, AVIF, HEIC, and HEIF. It's optional: leave it blank and the card shows a branded banner instead.
Click Add vendor to publish. The button stays inactive until the three required fields are filled.
Tips & tricks
- A photo of the vendor's own work — a finished repaint, a car on their trailer — makes a far better cover image than their logo.
- Add your best three or four vendors before you announce the directory. An empty or thin list teaches members it isn't worth checking.
- Ask the shop for a members' perk. A free appraisal review or a discount is a reason for members to use the directory rather than a search engine.
Step 4 — See it as a member
Open the Vendors tab as you normally would. Every member of your club sees the same directory, and each vendor's profile has its own address, so you can link straight to a vendor from a forum post or a newsletter.
How ratings and comments work
Ratings are out of five stars, and there's a rule worth knowing: a member has to leave a comment before their star rating unlocks. The page says so in place — "Leave a comment below to unlock star ratings." It exists to keep the directory honest, since a written experience helps other members far more than an anonymous star. Each profile shows the average rating and how many members have rated.
Comments are a threaded discussion on the vendor's profile — members can reply, react, and attach photos, which makes the thread a genuinely useful record of who did what work. Moderation is delete-only: an admin can remove a comment, but there's no hide-and-restore, so removing one is permanent.
Editing and removing vendors
Open a vendor's profile and click Edit vendor to change any field or replace the cover image — uploading a new photo replaces the existing one. Deleting a vendor removes its profile and the comments members left on it, so if a shop simply changed hands, editing the existing entry keeps that history intact.
Frequently asked
Can members add vendors themselves? No. Adding, editing, and removing vendors is an admin job; members contribute through ratings and comments.
Is the directory visible to non-members? It's part of your club site, so it follows the same visibility as the rest of it. If your club site is published, people who find it can read the directory.
Do vendors get an account or a notification? No. A vendor profile is a listing your club maintains — vendors aren't invited and can't edit their own entry.
Can a vendor be in more than one category? Yes, and it's common. That's why the filter counts can total more than the number of vendors.
What if a member had a bad experience? That's what the comments are for, and the comment-first rule means a low rating arrives with an explanation. Your club's normal conduct guidelines still apply.