Farmers markets are a popular option for people that want to know where their food is grown and that want to avoid industrial agricultural processes. Online farmers markets take the traditional farmers market and move it to the online space adding a level of convenience for people that want locally sourced food but do not live in an area where markets are held regularly.
If you’re contemplating starting an online farmers market following are some of the things you’ll need to take into consideration to do so.
Find Farmers
Farmers markets typically operate in a specific geographic area and source their food locally; this means that you can ensure that the produce you are supplying is fresh and avoid shipping food long distances. You’ll need to contact farmers in your area and ask if they’d like to be involved and decide on what terms. For example, when will they have produce available, what price do they expect, will they deliver to you and so on.
Decide on a Fulfillment Process
Once you’ve got your sources of produce established you’ll need to work out how you will get it to your customers. Will they pick it up from a central location or will you provide delivery services? Usually when people order online they choose the items they want and then have it delivered to their home. You’ll need to decide what makes best sense for your operation and customers.
Create a Website
You’ll need to register and create a website from which your customers can order produce. This can be a complicated process especially when you start to consider implementing payment methods, listing large numbers of items and the general functionality that people expect from what is, essentially, an ecommerce site. There are off-the-shelf software products that you may be able to use to simplify this process.
Potential Problems to Consider
Depending on where you live you may find it difficult to source products that you want to sell all year round. In addition, you can find yourself a victim of success when you have more customers for seasonal produce than can be readily supplied. You’ll need to carefully consider which produce you can supply and when and make this clear to your customers. One of the benefits of physical farmers markets is that customers can actually meet the people that grew the food; consider providing a profile on your site of your providers to help with this.