5 Easy Steps to Make Door-to-Door Delivery Profitable for your Farm

Prior to the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, a shift was already underway to ordering Food online in America. Last year, Walmart invested $20B to compete in online grocery shopping. In 2019, roughly 5% of Americans ordered groceries online as billion-dollar brands capitalized on consumer expectations of convenience.

Fast forward to Spring 2020. Measures to curb the pandemic, including stay-at-home orders, closed restaurants and social distancing guidelines, are accelerating the adoption of ordering food online. In March 2020, 1 out of 3 Americans went online to purchase groceries with the expectation of door-to-door delivery.

Of all the Farms we serve across America, we know Farmers who offer door-to-door delivery are more likely to be sold out, make a profit on deliveries (often on day one), and delight their buyers, too.

Here are the 5 Steps to make door-to-door delivery profitable for your Farm.

1. Get your Products Online.

Buyers expect a live online store with the ability to purchase your Farm products with the click-of-a-button. A Farm website or social presence with a phone number and an email address is NOT online shopping - buyers will bounce. Your online Farm store must be accessible via the web, mobile, social, email and newsletters with the ability to shop as a guest (or you’ll lose 2/3 of potential buyers).

2. Simplify Your Packaging.

Buyers convert at a higher rate when you offer fewer choices. Package your products into recommended bundles for easy decision-making for buyers (household of 1, 2 or 4). Assemble your bundles to help move all your products, while reserving specialty items to be sold individually (at a higher price). This applies equally to proteins, produce and garden Farms.

3. Sell Subscriptions.

Buyers subscribe to everything in their lives (music, movies, clothing, toiletries) - Food is no different. Offer subscriptions to your Farm products based on a recurring weekly, bi-weekly or monthly schedule. (e.g. weekly dairy/eggs or produce, bi-weekly flowers and poultry, monthly pork, fish, proteins and pantry items). Get paid upfront or per delivery. This is the single most important vehicle to increase cash flow for your Farm.

4. Narrow your Delivery Area & Times.

Start with a small delivery zone (zip code) and offer only a couple times per week (delivery windows), before going big. You may be surprised how many customers you’ll attract in a small delivery area, which enables you to optimize delivery time frames (and gas!). Offer delivery time frames that will be practical and convenient for your buyers (even after the pandemic ends).

5. Charge a Delivery Fee.

Buyers will gladly pay for the convenience of door-to-door delivery. We suggest a minimum of $5, but most Farmers charge $10-$15 per delivery in metropolitan areas (note, this is consistent with GrubHub Restaurant delivery). At scale a Farm can plan on 3-6 door-to-door deliveries per hour - which makes it profitable in a jiffy (even when paying a high school kid to run deliveries for you). 

Getting delivery up-and-running for your Farm is less daunting than you might perceive. If you are a Farmer that serves 50, 100 or 1,000+ customers, you’ll need a solution to help you tackle all 5 steps above, to manage your online store, product inventory, fulfillment schedules, orders, payments and customer communications. That’s where Barn2Door can help.

Recently, we helped a California farmer get online, capture six-figure sales, and manage  orders for door-to-door delivery from 100’s of customers in less than one week. Read more about their experience here: Farmer Spotlight: Yasukochi Farms (CA).

To get started with door-to-door delivery, we encourage you to watch this 5:40 video to learn how Barn2Door could work for your Farm. We would be delighted to serve your Farm.

At Barn2Door, we serve Farmers who sell direct-to-market, retail and wholesale, to their local communities. We are eager to help Farmers make a smooth transition online for their Farm operations, and their Buyers too. 

For more insights on building on your Farm’s online presence, read our eBook, Your Farm Website is NOT Enough!