Best Practices for your Farm Storefront
To sell more products and meet Buyer expectations, your Farm must provide a simple and easy shopping experience, online and in-person. Your Farm must be accessible from a variety of avenues to serve a multitude of Buyers. Offer convenient fulfillment options that will serve Buyers with a range of routines and schedules.
Package your most popular items together in Bundle Boxes and sell Subscriptions to move more products and secure a recurring cash flow monthly. Ensure you are consistently communicating with your local Buyers to remain top-of-mind and build the fear-of-missing-out (FOMO) around your best-selling products. Serve more in-person Buyers with a point-of-sale (POS) built for Farmers, making it easy for customers to shop from your Farm. Learn more about these best practices, used by our most successful Farmers:
1. Utilize an Online Farm Store
It should be easy and convenient for Buyers to shop from your Farm online. Your items should be accessible across numerous channels. An online store allows your Buyers to shop from anywhere, at any time. Your online store should be easy to navigate for Buyers, and not overwhelm them, which may cause them to exit. It is recommended to have less than 50 items in your store. If your customers have to click through multiple pages to see all your inventory, then you are offering too many choices, which leads to lower conversion.
Your product photos should be high-quality and eye-catching. Buyers like to see what they are getting before they make a purchase. Add a banner to the top of your online Farm store to highlight promotional or seasonal offers. Banners can be set on a timer and personalized to communicate important news to Buyers, and create FOMO around timely offers.
Pin your most popular, high-value and seasonal items to the top of your store. These will be the first products your Buyers see, and will typically inspire a purchase. The majority of Buyers will naturally pick the pinned items first, because they are the first impression of your Farm store. Highlight items such as Subscriptions or Pre-Orders to secure more sales. If these items appear on page 5 of your store, Buyers are less likely to see and purchase them.
2. Create Convenient Fulfillments
Your fulfillments have the power to attract Buyers. If fulfillments seem too inconvenient, Buyers may abandon a purchase. However, you may spur a purchase if your customers see that they can easily access your products on a schedule consistent with their local routines (aka the “local loop”). Successful Farms offer various fulfillments, including local pick-ups and deliveries. Some Farms may choose to ship shelf-stable products for a fee.
Offer pick-up locations in your community’s local loop where members frequent on a consistent basis (e.g. local business, church or school). This will improve convenience to potential Buyers that will encourage shopping, and help attract new customers who may see your products every week at the pick-up. Many Buyers are unwilling to drive beyond 10 miles or 30 minutes to acquire your products, so consider making pick-ups more accessible to your local Buyers, and to choose locations they frequent regularly. Pick-ups act as free advertising to passersby, and are a great opportunity to build local partnerships with other organizations in your community (e.g. local gyms, restaurants, bakeries).
Delivery adds convenience for busy shoppers. Successful Farms offer delivery for a fee that most busy customers are willing to pay. Your Farm can start small by delivering to a short-list of targeted zip codes in nearby towns and expand over time (after delivery becomes profitable). Ensure you are targeting locations that are densely populated with your ideal customer. Use a branded van or truck for increased exposure to potential Buyers. Add a QR code to lead them directly to your Farm store.
3. Offer Bundle Boxes and Subscriptions
Create easy, ready-to-order options for your Buyers to shop from your inventory. The less effort it takes to secure a week or month worth of food, the better. Buyers want a quick, simple shopping experience, so offering pre-packaged bundles that are one click away will be an obvious choice for customers. Packaging high-value and specialty items together will drive your average order value, making it easy for Buyers to sample your products.
Listen: Produce Packaging Basics
Sell your top-selling items in Bundle Box Subscriptions to push more product with each order. Farmers drive the most revenue when they sell multiple products within each order. Farmer-Recommended boxes are easy to package and allow you to pair items together that may not sell as well on their own, and deter decision fatigue for Buyers. On your storefront, explain what may be inside of each box, what’s seasonally relevant and any size options. Offering various box sizes is crucial, as 1/3 of Americans live alone, 1/3 live in a household of 2 and 1/3 in a household of 3 or more.
Read: How to Sell Beef Cuts
Subscriptions give your Buyers an ongoing commitment to your Farm products and food security, and allow your Farm to bring in recurring cash flow each month. The average American has around 9 paid Subscriptions (gym, music, utilities, food), so this will not be a new concept for your Buyers; they expect it! You can have a consistent schedule and revenue to manage, and your Buyers will have easy, ongoing access to your food. Successful Subscriptions include staple products (milk, eggs, ground beef), or anything else people already buy and consume on a regular basis.
4. Consistently Communicate with Buyers
Once you attract new Buyers with an easy-to-use eCommerce platform and convenient fulfillments, you must maintain those relationships. Always assume that if you are not marketing to your customer, another competing producer will be marketing to them. Barn2Door puts all of your Farm Buyers into the Customer Management Center, so you can access their usual orders, email or fulfillment preferences at any time. Here, you can access emails you have collected to market to buyers via newsletters and order reminders. This guarantees you get in front of people, as most people have their phones on them at all times, with email downloaded.
Communicate with your Buyers with consistent email marketing. You can segment your Buyer types into different lists by their typical orders, purchase frequency and location to create targeted communications. Successful Farmers send out automatic order reminders prior to delivery and pick-up days to spur more sales before preparing boxes to go out. Increase sales with FOMO using promos (e.g. 10% off all orders by the end of Friday!) and order cut offs (e.g. Subscription sign ups end tomorrow at 9am). You can also update Buyers on any new products released in your store, seasonal items or new Subscription offers.
5. Streamline Sales with Farm POS
Use Farm POS for in-person sales. Do not turn away Buyers on-farm, at pick-ups, during deliveries or at the market because you are unable to accept digital payments. Instead, make it easy to accept credit cards, debit cards, cash, check or mobile payments (Apple Pay, Google Pay) with your Point-of-Sale device. Enable a prompt to appear, requesting Buyer emails at checkout. These email addresses will sync into your Barn2Door customer list, allowing you to sync the information with Mailchimp to send tailored messages, spurring future orders.
Barn2Door’s POS device syncs your inventory across online and in-person sales. No matter where a sale occurs, it is tracked and inventory is automatically updated. You can customize your sales between multiple price lists, different Buyers types and set price or sell-by-weight capabilities. Set up promo functionalities to give cartwide discounts to Buyers when applicable (e.g. Veterans discount). You may also enable tipping functions, for Buyers to show their appreciation for your Farm. Download the Barn2Door POS app on any device to use at in-person sales events, to serve more Buyers and make your check out more streamlined.
Conclusion
Once your Farm storefront is ready for sales, you need to market your products and business to secure purchases. Your local Buyers care about your brand as a sustainable, independent Farmer. Share your day-to-day life, products and values through social media, grassroots and email marketing. Always link to your store in your social media profiles, in emails, on your website and in-person with QR codes. Sell yourself as a brand, and people will feel more connected to your store.
Offer an easy-to-shop platform with convenient fulfillments and numerous ways to purchase, and to please Buyers. If you make it easy to shop from your Farm, it will be an obvious choice for customers. Use an eCommerce platform that is specifically built for Farmers with your products in mind.
Barn2Door offers software for Independent Farmers to create and promote their brand, sell online and in-person, and save time managing their business. If you’re curious to learn more, watch this 5-minute video.