Small Farm Central

Online sales are finally gaining traction in the farming community and perhaps differently than you would imagine. Most of our farmers that use ecommerce (in other words, online sales) are selling products on their websites to local customers, not shipping products across the country.

This may seem counter-intuitive: since the customers are right in your backyard why should the Internet get in the way of that relationship?

A few compelling reasons to use online sales for your products:

1. Your customers spend their days tied to email and their computer, so they can order at a time that makes sense for them.
2. It is a differentiating factor between your farm and other local farms: if you can find a way to offer online sales you have a leg up on the competition.
3. For products that are very seasonal or limited in quantity, customers can see if certain products are available and order them before they drive to your farm market or farmers market stand (for example, if they just must have their baby radish sprouts).
4. There's no data entry -- just keep farming as orders come in. When it comes time to pick and pack orders, just print out a report of the orders that came in and you are ready to go!

Don't confuse online sales with credit cards. Many of our ecommerce-savvy farmers do not accept credit card payment online: their customers make an order and pay for the products when they pick up their box of food at the drop-off point. However, PayPal and Google Checkout integration is available for farmers that want to have the order pre-paid.

I talk to many farmers that are stuck in the cycle of sending out an availability list by email without the use of an ordering system. Their customers reply to the email with their order, the farmer takes that order manually from the email into an excel spreadsheet, and then can pack the boxes from there. The big problem comes when a product with limited availability sold out and then the farmer needs to email each customer that ordered that product to disappoint them with the fact that wild boar pepperoni sticks are sold out. Our ecommerce system allows you to set an inventory for each item; when the item is sold out it drops off your product list so there is no confusion.

It is not exaggerating to say that switching from an email-only type ordering system to an online system, while initially a bit time-consuming, will save 10s of tedious data-entry hours every week throughout the season.

To give you an idea of the process, here is a general outline of how a farmer runs a local, online ordering system. We'll assume that this typical farmer (let's call her Sharon) has a Saturday farmers market and she allows customers to come online to make a pre-order.

• On Wednesday morning, Sharon logs in to her control panel to update her inventory, add items, and clean up her web store to make it ready for customers.
• She sends out an blast email through the control panel to past and prospective customers to inform them that the web store is open and ready for business with any other details that are relevant to that week's order.
• Customers visit the website to make orders throughout the day on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. When a customer checks out, a confirmation email is sent to farmer Sharon and to the customer. As items run out of inventory, they are automatically removed from the web store so Sharon's stock is never over-sold.
• On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday Sharon is out farming and not in the office!
• On Friday night, Sharon shuts down the web store and requests a report to show all orders that came in during the previous three days. She gets an aggregate total of all items to use a pick list (ie in 10 orders, she sold 20 dozen eggs) and each individual order that she can use as a pack list. This information can be exported to an excel spreadsheet if further processing is necessary.
• Sharon picks and packs the order on Saturday morning for pickup at the market.

In this case, technology does not get in the way of the relationship with the farmer and in a lot of ways it should make that connection more meaningful because the website can promote products / recipes / techniques that you can't possibly promote at a busy market. Also, customers can plan their meals more easily and will likely make a bigger order with your farm because of the convenience that you are providing them makes it natural to add a few extra items to the order.

This type of system has been very successful for CSAs offering "extras" to customers on a weekly basis. These are products like flour, honey, coffee that the farmer is vouching for and that customers need, but does not quite fit into the CSA box.

I have heard a lot of talk of farmers wanting to model what Joel Salatin at Polyface Farm is doing through his Polyface Yum ordering system -- I think it must have come up at a number of farming conferences this winter. I saw the handout sheet that listed about 6-7 different services that Polyface used to make their system work and it isn't clear that the average farmer could put all of that together in a way that makes sense. So, yes, our ordering system can model what Salatin does at Polyface Yum without all the fuss.

Just because e-commerce allows you to sell products to people throughout the world does not mean that you must sell nation-wide. In fact, I think a well-managed web store selling to local customers is more powerful because you already have a good connection with customers in your community and it can really be a differentiating factor. The easier you can make it for your customers to support your farm, the better off you will be. The average web user is now quite comfortable with online ordering and will be surprised and pleased that their local farm now offers this convenience.

Our ecommerce plans are billed on a monthly basis -- either $10 or $20/month depending on the complexity of your needs. If you have an existing website, but would like to use our ecommerce features, you can certainly do that. Check out the "ecommerce-only" options on the plans & pricing page. You can switch off the ecommerce plans during the winter or your off-season while you are not using that functionality.

Be in touch with us if you have any questions about what you are planning for your ordering system. I'm sure we can help you or if we cannot, we can at least point you in the right direction!