CSA? Thinking Outside the Box
More with The Twenty Bag:
This Farm has a whole new twist on CSA…
and it’s working!
CSAs THEN
When Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) grew popular across the United States in the 1980’s, it was an innovative way to give access to local food, while reducing the financial risk for Farmers through guaranteed ongoing sales.
In a traditional CSA model, customers paid for a “Seasonal Share” before the growing season and enjoyed ongoing yields throughout harvest (typically a weekly ‘box’ full of produce). For example, a customer pays $400 to a local Farm in March for a ‘CSA Share’ that starts in June; for 20 weeks that customer gets a box of seasonal produce at a designated pickup location. This gives Farms an early cash infusion to cover growing costs, while securing sales for the season. Consumers benefit from nutritious, local food and reinforcing the community ecosystem.
CSA’s TODAY: IS THE MODEL BROKEN?
Consumers increasingly demand convenient buying options and are online for more than 6 hours daily. They have a lot of choices for who and where to buy from—the time is ripe to rethink and modernize the CSA model. Most would agree, CSA’s have become overly complicated (attempting to offer “choice” CSA’s), and consumers today want simple, easy and quick. If CSA Farms want to compete with so many buying choices, they will need to simplify. Too many options and steps can overwhelm customers, and decrease the likelihood of them ordering. The effort to offer “choice” CSA’s has become expensive and burdensome for Farms, while limiting customers’ spending and defying expectations to simply “shop” week to week. Simply put, the cart is the new box.
Fortunately, online shoppers like simple choices, minimal clicks and an easy purchasing experience. Your buyers want their shopping experience to be the same as the food they’re buying—clean and uncomplicated!
THE FARMER
One Farm on Edisto Island, South Carolina, is truly thinking outside the box! The Twenty Bag Farm offers an opt-in limited choice CSA—and they regularly sell out. Grower Harleston Towles offers clear, consistent communications, simple choices, straightforward photos, and a specific weekly cadence that creates urgency for people to buy or they’ll miss out (aka FOMO—“fear of missing out”)!
At The Twenty Bag, Harleston Towles drew from his off-the-Farm business experience to test a different model. Each Monday at noon, he posts a photo and announces the contents of that week’s “Twenty Bag” on social media, via newsletter, and on his online store. He announces across all channels, as customers have their preferred channels and you need to hit ‘em up on each digital touch-point. His weekly photo is consistent and clear—produce is neatly laid out on a wooden table. Customers have from Monday at noon until Wednesday at noon to purchase a Twenty Bag for (you guessed it!)—$20.00. Customers pick up their Twenty Bag(s) weekly on Thursdays, at one of several drop locations. Harleston’s Twenty Bags regularly sell out—or, as we like to say: he’s got his sales ‘in the bag’!
So, why does Harlston’s weekly, standardized, opt-in model work so well? And why is it ‘thinking outside the box’?
First, customers don’t feel pressure to commit to an entire season’s full share of produce. Rather, they see each week in advance and choose whether or not to ‘opt-in’ to purchase that week (p.s. they can also ‘double up’ and buy more than one ‘Twenty Bag’). Buyers may shy away from purchasing full season CSA shares because (a) they feel they won’t use all the product (uncertainty and waste), or (b) they feel uncomfortable committing too far in advance (consumers today are increasingly spontaneous when it comes to travel!). Ongoing commitment may cramp their lifestyle and create ‘more to manage’ sometime in the future. But weekly prompts to opt-in? All in—consumers love supporting local Farmers (and can quickly determine weekly needs and weekly schedule).
“By allowing customers to “opt in” each week, Harleston is selling more and wasting less.”
Second, his customers aren’t overwhelmed with options. There’s one standard bag of produce each week that they choose whether or not to purchase (binary yes or no). What there isn’t: 100’s of exceptions or choices with swap-outs and requests, forms, too many clicks and every-box-custom. Buyers would rather know what’s in season and make a feel-good decision in less than 5 seconds! This is awesome for buyers (click yes or no) and Farmers (120 of the same, uniform order). There’s a weekly rhythm, with hard cut-off dates that not only drive customer habit, but saves Harleston time managing communications and assembling orders. It’s convenient for customers to opt in to a consistent, no curve-ball plan to meet at the same drop location week after week.
Finally, Harleston has perfected his Farm’s customer communications. Utilizing a weekly newsletter, social media and web presence, Harleston communicates succinctly and regularly to a well-developed customer list. This offers a clear call-to-action for his customers, gives them specific expectations on timing (orders open, orders closed, orders delivered), and helps his customers begin to create a routine habit of purchasing. Ideal! For Harleston, this streamlines his own tasks and processes (announce on Mondays, fill orders Thursday morning and deliver).
We love how Harleston thought outside the box, working to simplify choices, simplify fulfillment and create loyal customers who make routine, convenient purchases online. We appreciate CSA ‘innovators’ who keep it simple for both their customers and themselves. Win win!
HOW BARN2DOOR HELPED
“Barn2Door enables me to run my business the way I want to. I can easily update my store, communicate with my customers and make buying easy for them. Barn2Door’s system has been easy to use and helped me streamline operations to offer a better experience to my customers. Their staff is always willing and ready to support when needed.”
At Barn2Door, we work with CSA Farms offering either traditional or new subscription models to dedicated customers. Our goal is to help make it easy for Farms to delight their customers through convenient online ordering and consistent engagement across all digital channels.
If you are already a Farmer using Barn2Door, check in with your Account Manager for ideas to simplify and routinely engage customers! If you want to get a closer look at how Barn2Door powers Farmers’ online ordering and marketing, you can learn how it works in 5:40.