As you grow as a farm or ranch often you begin looking for new ways to market your products. If you’re already selling directly to consumers online, excellent: you’re helping yourself and your community.
If you’re not offering farm sales online yet, or need help selling locally to consumers, this article can help.
Whether you grow vegetables, fruits, berries, meat, milk shares, herbs, or cut flowers, selling directly to consumers online creates an easy-to-manage new sales channel that can help reach new customers and increase revenue and profits. Read on for tips on how to quickly get an eCommerce website up and running using Farmbrite, as well as some general suggestions that can help any farmer or rancher selling their products online.
Your Farm Website
Having a website is very helpful for many reasons. Most importantly it puts you on the virtual map, helping more customers find you.
At the very least your farm website should indicate what products you offer and how to get in touch with you. Ideally, it would allow your customers to choose from your available products and pay you electronically.
With a Farmbrite you can create a farm website in minutes. You don’t need to know anything about websites or coding. You simply type in what you want to say on your home page and specify common-sense things like your contact information. If you have photos or a logo to share, great, if not, that’s okay, too.
Here’s what I made in less time than it takes for the kettle to boil:
Take a closer look. There’s a “Products” link to show visitors what’s for sale. There are also links for “Pickup Locations” and “Contact Us.”
You simply type this information into your Farmbrite account and it updates the appropriate areas on your site. Farmbrite saves you time by linking information to every place it’s useful, rather than requiring you to re-enter it each time.
What to Sell Online
What should you sell online? Of course “everything” seems like the right answer, and that may be true in time, but start small. Selling Community Supported Agriculture or CSA shares makes great sense. You might offer CSA-style produce boxes or “grab-and-go” bags. Maybe it’s half winter greens and half assorted root crops. You know what’s the best fit in your area and each season.
Most importantly, simply let people know what you’re making available and how. This gives them the opportunity to shop locally, support your farm, and enjoy fresh healthy food.
Offer Conviences with Farm Pickup Times and Locations
If you make it convenient, you will bring more customers. Part of the equation is how to get the food to your customers. You can do this by offering delivery and having convenient pickup times and locations.
Don’t offer delivery? That’s fine, too. You can simply specify pickup times and locations at checkout. You might also clarify when orders have to be placed before pickup. For example, something like, “Orders must be placed before midnight on Thursday to be ready for Saturday pickup.”
You can refine this later as you learn what works well and what does not.
Highlight your Growing Methods
Your website is a great place to highlight the steps you take to offer a healthy shopping alternative. Are you certified organic, biodynamic, or something else? Let your customers know.
Collecting Farm Payments Online
One way to make things like online ordering and subscription boxes easy is to have folks prepay for pickup orders using a credit card on your farm e-commerce site. There are many ways to offer this service to your customers. Farmbrite offers many different options where you can securely accept credit card payments.
Set up this way, Farmbrite will notify you each time a purchase has been made. You can manage all your orders and customers within Farmbrite, while charges are made through – and deposited into – your Stripe account.
Want to try taking your farm sales online? No problem; with Farmbrite’s free trial you can experiment all you wish. But that’s just part of what Farmbrite offers. You can also explore all the other farm and livestock management features of the Professional plan for free for 14 days.
Already had your free trial, or need a little more time? No problem; just let us know and we’ll set you up.
Want to do More With an Online Farm Store?
Having an online farm store enables you to create an online marketplace, find new customers, keep track of the orders you receive, and overall turn your passion for farming into profit. There are many e-commerce, CRM, inventory, and logistics solutions on the market today, and Farmbrite is just one. If you'd like to try a different online store, here is a link to an exclusive offer at LocalLIne.
We hope you find success with your online store and selling your farm fresh offerings. Happy farming!
Additional Resources
Farm Marketing: How to Sell More Online – Farmbrite Blog
Your Shop Overview – Farmbrite Help Article