Built For Farmers: A Simple and Easy Refund Experience
In this week's episode, James and Anthony here at Barn2Door discuss the new simple and easy Refund Experience offered to Farmers. To learn more about the new Barn2Door Refund Experience, read here: A Simple and Easy Refund Experience for Your Farm Business
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James M: Hello, and welcome to the Direct Farm podcast. I am James, your host for today's episode. And we've got another great conversation for you today with Barn2Door's very own product manager, Anthony Maiocco. Anthony joined Barn2Door more than three years ago in the height of the pandemic as part of Barn2Door's success team, helping to onboard hundreds of farms all across America.
A year later, Anthony moved into product management, and he's helped define and prioritize our engineering investments. Now, over the past year, Anthony has [00:01:00] expanded his role and responsibilities to also take on managing user experience and the support teams, too. Anthony has been educated as a mechanical engineer and continues to invest his time and energies to help Barn2Door best serve farmers.
It's great to have you back and to share more about many of the product innovations we have at Barn2Door, Anthony, so welcome back. Great to see you.
Anthony M: Yeah, great seeing you too or hearing you. Thanks for having me.
James M: Love having these types of conversations because I always am excited for farmers to understand all the hard work that you do and the engineering team does to bring all these innovations to market. Let's, let's dive in. Um, since joining Barn2Door, you know, your roles and responsibilities have evolved significantly during your tenure.
I'd really be curious for you to share with our listeners a little bit more about your purview. Now you, you oversee all of product user experience and support. Can you tell us kind of two things about your role that you absolutely love day to day in your job?
Anthony M: Yeah, uh, well, kind of just kick off. I would say the biggest thing is just [00:02:00] working on a platform that is so tailor made and built for farmers. It's really great to kind of be able to dive into those specific cases and especially when onboarding, all those accounts, uh, when I was, over on the success side of the business. It was really great to see all of the solutions that Barn2Door had to offer, for those farmers that we, were bringing onto the program.
Um, and then the other piece that I've really gotten to enjoy and kind of see later in my kind of time and tenure here at Barn2Door has just been how high of a priority and how well we do at actually capturing the feedback from different farms, that are on the platform just because we have, many different people who interact with our farmers from our support team and success team members and different surveys and stuff that we'll send out. And we bring it all together to make sure that we're keeping our finger on the pulse.
James M: Yeah, that's really awesome. I know a lot of, a lot of businesses [00:03:00] aspire to capture feedback from their customers, but don't do very well. And I have to really commend you, it's been really fun to see how you've created all these forms and feedback surveys for us to capture data from literally thousands of farms, right? So, you can work through some of those edge cases, but most importantly, focus on the innovations that are really going to make a difference for farmers.
So, for listeners who may be a little bit unfamiliar, with Barn2Door and what it means to be built for farmers. What does that really mean? How is Barn2Door kind of tackling some of these unique challenges differently than other solutions like Shopify or Square?
Anthony M: Yeah, ultimately, I mean, think of even just all the different varieties of farms that are out there, and we probably get to support some of them. So between different farms we support, many of them have perishable goods, often seasonal, a lot of the produce farms out there. And then, often many have a wide range of pickup and delivery and [00:04:00] once in a while shipping options.
So, that's not necessarily the focus. Many of the farms that we work with are building that direct relationship with their local consumers and building their customer base that way. And then there's a lot of customers who are looking to be engaging with those farms and consuming their product on an ongoing basis.
So, that means that subscriptions are top of mind and something that we've continued to be able to prioritize and kind of drill down into and work with and, you know, kind of receive feedback on.
James M: Yeah, that's a big one, I know, at least on the sales side, getting a chance to talk with all these farmers. You know, they don't want to just sell a product once, right? Because if they're growing something, it's going to keep growing, right? And they're going to keep harvesting those products and probably more importantly for us as consumers and buyers, we're going to keep eating as well, right?
So it's really great to see all the investments we've made in the subscriptions. Now, you also mentioned too, a little bit about the fact that, you know, we've designed things more for delivery and pickup, right. [00:05:00] Cause that's specific for farmers. Most farmers actually deliver or have their products picked up. Because it's local, right? Let's dive in and talk a little bit more about the topic at hand, specifically dealing with refunds, regardless of how the products are picked up or delivered, right? There's a lot of things, a lot of variables to look at, right? And I know we've always supported refunds, but what's the big deal about this new refund experience that, you know, we recently debuted? I know it was a lot of work for you and the UI team and the engineering team, but why is it such a big deal?
Anthony M: At a, a high level, the biggest deal is just how clean and easy we've been able to make it in this new iteration. So, products are purchased in many different ways. It might be just for a one time pickup, you've got the payment there in the mix, or it might be for a subscription where you might have it all be paid up front or on a recurring basis.
So ultimately with this new refund experience, we've brought, [00:06:00] you know, those different complexities together, so even if someone has, collected a deposit or not, or, only have a final charge or something like that, there's one place where they can go to easily assess a refund through the platform.
James M: Wow, that's a, that's a big deal. So, whether a farmer has a one time purchase or a subscription or a deposit, and that could all be a combination of thereof on a given order, the farmer can go through and refund any individual item or amount.
Is that correct? Is that how that works now?
Anthony M: Yeah. And ultimately, behind the scenes, there's a lot that has to come together to make this happen, but ultimately what's being shown is a very simple interface where, whether there's a combination of items on the order, like you were saying, a subscription and a variable weight item with the deposit and, one time, just kind of normal purchase items.
The farmer is presented with one simple screen to be able to go through and choose which [00:07:00] items and in what amounts they would like to conduct the refund. So, like if there was a recurring subscription for, a customer who has their weekly egg delivery, the farmer would be able to go through and say like, 'hey, my delivery driver actually tripped on the stairs and broke the eggs and they're, they're going to get their eggs next week. My chickens are going to keep laying, but for, for this week we're, we're not going to be able to provide that. We're going to have to send you a refund'. The farmer can go through and easily put through a refund for that dozen eggs the customer wanted.
And then the subscription is still there, intact, and ready to pick up and the customer will be receiving it the next week. Again, so they can assess the refund without canceling the subscription, which, you know, sounds simple enough. But again, there's a lot that has to come together, kind of, in the behind the scenes to make that happen.
James M: Yeah, it sounds, like you said, it's simple for the farmer to do it. It sounds trivial, but behind the scenes it sounds [00:08:00] really complex, right? Because you have something where you've got an ongoing set of transactions, an ongoing commitment, but you have to take that single installment and give them a refund without canceling the rest of the order, right?
That's probably a big deal, why we obviously made this big investment in our subscription technology, right? That's a great example. Accidents happen, like you said. People are going to drop the eggs or drop a jar of milk, whatever it could be, where they have to refund them. What about other fees associated with it?
It's one thing to, you know, have to refund for the product, but what about like delivery fees, taxes, tips? I mean, there's a lot of other things that are a part of an order or set of payments.
Anthony M: So, if there is a tip or a delivery fee, those will each be individual line items that the farmer can choose to refund or not. And then, beyond that, for things such as taxes, a lot of that is pretty much just handled automatically by the system. So, if there was an item that was originally $10 and there was another 80 cents assessed in taxes, [00:09:00] when the farmer's putting through that refund for that $10 item, the appropriate refund would go through the $10 and 80 cents to make sure they're not over collecting. So, anything that's either kind of credit, debit on a given order is going to be itemized and taken care of and taxes are going to be calculated and adjusted automatically.
James M: Wow, that's a big deal. Like, I know that would take a lot of time, and someone having to pull out a calculator, pen and pencil, would have to think through all those things. If, if they didn't have software doing it, and that's probably the beauty of having engineers who are thinking through these complexities and then writing code to do it.
So tell me a little bit more about some of the other nuances that might come with, you know, refunds for farm products, right? Because these are perishable products, right? They're not like we're selling swim trunks and, you know, uh, watches, right? These are, these are perishable items. What else have you guys thought about or, or considered in your design when, when thinking about refunds?
Anthony M: Yeah, the biggest thing is whether or not to return an item to [00:10:00] stock, so like in the case before, with eggs, like if the eggs are dropped and broken, those would not be getting returned to stock. Whereas if there's a purchase for another items, per honey or something like that, where, you know, you could go back and turn around and sell that to the next customer, a farmer would have the option to be able to return that to stock so that it'll show in the inventory in the storefront, for the next customer to purchase.
James M: Okay, so that's a big deal, right? Because, people may have purchased too much of a particular quantity, and maybe they just want to cut down their, you know, subscription from four jars of honey per month down to two jars of honey per month, whatever it may be. And then all of a sudden those will just update automatically. Does a farmer need to do anything else? Once they say it's going back to stock, it'll just show up and it's available for resale again, on the store?
Anthony M: Yeah, correct. I mean, the, the item would be showing as available on the storefront if the inventory is available. So as soon as those, let's say that one jar of honey is refunded, there would be [00:11:00] one more jar of honey in the inventory available for customers on the storefront.
James M: That is awesome. Talk about saving time and reducing the thinking that a farmer has to do. They can just simply focus on their business. That's awesome. And what about, you know, farmers who are selling online in person? I know we have a lot of farmers who, you know, sell at their farm store, off the back of the truck, or at a farmer's market with a Barn2Door point of sale device.
Others that are selling online, some do both. Is there any differences between, you know, refunds for in person versus online transactions?
Anthony M: Well, this will work for both cases, ultimately, so if the original purchase was an online purchase or at the point of sale, this new refund experience will apply, in both cases, so easy to go back after the fact if necessary to assess that refund, and make sure that you've got a full kind of scope and picture of exactly what needs to happen, no matter where the customer was.
James M: That's incredible, right? Because, [00:12:00] so, everything is going through a single merchant account. I know that's a big deal for many of our farmers, right? Because not only is the inventory in sync, but the money's all in one bucket, right? So they can just pull, pull the money, whether it's online or an in person purchase, and the refund experience will just pull it out of that single merchant account.
Is that correct?
Anthony M: Absolutely. Yeah. We try and make sure that, again, part of that clean and easy experience that we're, always moving towards, is going to be making sure that the only actions that a farmer has to worry about is pretty much what's right there in that window. They don't have to go somewhere else to manage those point of sale orders separately, or those refunds for those point of sale orders or anything. It's all going to be smooth, seamless, and easy to use and understand.
James M: Wow, that's, uh, that is super exciting for farmers, because I know farmers just don't have the time, extra time on their hands to have to try to go through, needle through all these different pages to try and find a refund for this or that. Just to be able to [00:13:00] pull this all together in one single pane of glass is a big deal.
Well, hey, Anthony, this has been a really enlightening conversation. Just real kudos to you and the entire product and engineering team for all the efforts to, to make something truly built for farmers, right?
To be able to handle all these nuances and requirements for, for products that they sell. Is there anything else before we, before we sign off, is there anything else that you want to share about like the investments you have made in this new refund experience that may not be so obvious to our listeners?
Anthony M: Yeah. I think, one last thing to kind of put in is, that we did go through in the design of this experience and it's probably one of the cleanest experiences on the platform that we have for mobile, actually, we have an increasing number of farmers that we're working with who are, you know, on the go and going one place to another, and a customer might be reaching out to them when they don't have their computer right in front of them. And, you know, being able to assess a refund [00:14:00] pretty much anytime, anywhere is a critical part of being able to do business, and so the mobile design of this refund experience is likewise very simple, and there were actually some kind of custom parts and things we had to build in to make sure that it was to the standard that we know our farmers are coming to expect.
So, ultimately, yeah, the mobile experience, I think, is actually something that is, very clean and hopefully something that'll be well appreciated as our farmers get to use it more and more.
James M: That's a big deal, for farmers who are listening to this, most of you may or may not know, but about 65 percent of all transactions conducted by buyers with farmers through Barn2Door are actually over a mobile device, so it's a big deal, right? So, to give farmers that same flexibility to not only be able to capture orders, right, on a mobile device, but like you said, Anthony, be able to handle a refund, whether that be in person or on the go, they can just do that off their mobile phone. Just, again, saves time, doesn't require them to go back to the [00:15:00] house, they could just do it from their truck or wherever they may be at that time. So big deal. Well, thank you so much for enlightening us today on today's podcast and sharing all the efforts and the intentionality that you and Jeremy and the engineering have put into making this a great experience for farmers.
I want to extend my thanks to Anthony for joining us on this week's episode of the DirectFarm podcast, and for his ongoing contributions and leadership of Barn2Door. Here at Barn2Door, we're humbled to support thousands of farms all across the country and we're honored to get the opportunity to learn from our most successful farms who share the tactics, resources, and tools they use to grow and manage their farm business.
For more information about Barn2Door, check out our website at www.barn2door.com. That's www.barn2door.com. You can dive into all the features of Barn2Door built for farmers to help you increase sales, access more customers and save time. Thank you for tuning in and we look forward to seeing you [00:16:00] next time on the Direct Farm Podcast.