Initial Set Up Question

I am going to set up a directory of retailers selling a certain product. Some retailers are online only and some are brick and mortar locations. We want the brick and mortar to come up as a default in the store locator. Should we separate the physical locations from the online only retailers as a custom post type or somehow make the ‘location’ invisible for the online retailers?

Also, the users will be searching the directory primarily by brand to find retailers. We will use filters for this. However, within the brands there are many, many (thousands) of always changing limited edition prints and styles. It does not seem that permanent filters are a good way of filtering the prints to make them searchable. Could we use tags for this? We would like users to be able to search for a print somehow and find retailers that are carrying it.

Thanks in advance for your advice. Love the plugin!