By Eric Webster
www.thewebwriter.net

A labor of love without reward is just labor.

There are so many different things that lead someone to farming.  There are a multitude of reasons one chooses to provide the food for their community.  Having to deal with figuring out the world of online sales is never one of them.  No matter the path that led you to running your farm, a passion for retail probably wasn’t a factor.

But here you are.  You’re raising the livestock, tilling the soil, growing the grain and the vegetables.  And trying to figure out how to get your product sold.  You’ve made a sign that says ‘fresh, local produce’, but where do you hang it?  How do farmers sell their products?

You’ve got this!  But that doesn’t mean you couldn’t use some help.

Local farmers already do so much.  They help to protect the community from disruptions in the global food supply chain.  They reduce our reliance on preservatives and long-distance transportation.  Research shows that the dollars spent directly at the farms and within the community are more likely to remain in the local economy.

Your day is a never-ending stream of chores and responsibilities.  After you get all of the to-do lists done the only things you want to think about are dinner and whatever you’ve got lined up on Hulu (if you can keep your eyes open).

You’re really supposed to still have things to do?

All that work the first twelve hours of the day was supposed to be it, right?  Instead you need to:

• Create and maintain a website designed to draw local businesses to your farm.  In addition to the added expense, web design and agriculture aren’t exactly the same thing.  Being good at one doesn’t help with the other.
• Learn about and use marketing strategies to stand out among your competitors.  Colleges offer courses on this, but you have a lot of other things on your plate without trying to find time for classes.
• Track and manage payments from a variety of sources while keeping up with inventory.  Book keeping is fun!  Who needs help with that?
• Maintain a database of client information to keep up with recurring orders, preferences and payment methods.  Maybe you can make some spreadsheets, too.  And buy a filing cabinet.  Instead of perfecting your irrigation and pest control you can get really good at Excel.

There are some services out there that will provide you with all the tools you need (and a lot of tools you probably don’t).  These services will also take a lot of your money every month.  Far more than many small businesses can be expected to absorb as costs for operating.  The cost to do business should never be so much as to prevent doing business.

If only there was an affordable app for selling farm products

With a simple download you are on your way to simple, easy answers.  Locally Grown was started with the goal of making the lowest barrier to entry platform for farms to sell their products online.

Once the app is downloaded it takes about 30 minutes to get set up and start selling, and the cost to you is nothing.  Once more for those in the back, that number was nothing!  Zero, zilch, nada.  Certainly this is the cheapest way to sell your farm’s products!

All that pesky ecommerce?  Handled.  The app’s customer version shows them all of the participating farms in their search radius that offer what they are looking for.  Business comes to you instead of you having to spend quality time looking for customers.

The joys of marketing?  Your farm’s bio appears on the app as well as your product listing and photographs.  All you have to do is update pricing and availability as needed.  Just another hassle and expense you can take a pass on as Locally Grown gets your information out there at no cost to you.

I hear you saying nothing is free and you are, of course, correct.  We keep the lights on with a small 6% transaction fee applied to the customer’s total at the point of sale, so it IS free to you.  It’s a small price for bringing a little bit of infrastructure to a segment of the market that doesn’t have much of one.

Don’t just take my word for it, the reviews tell the same tale

“Customer service is top notch and any issues and questions have been answered quickly. The app is user friendly and we highly recommend this app to anyone looking for an online sales opportunity.” - PrairieWoods Farm

Who can I expect to reach with such an app?

Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to negotiate with distributors and food hubs?  To have the demand for your product come to you?  With prices all over the place at the grocery stores there are plenty of shoppers looking for some stability in their experience.  The locally grown:local farms app, companion to locally grown (for farmers) is used by:

• Smaller groceries who could use a reliable supply chain as sourcing becomes harder.  With global markets not knowing which way they are headed, smart retailers are keeping their suppliers as close to home as possible
• The ever expanding health conscious crowd likes to know where their food originated.  Having the farms at their fingertips, and the farmers at the other end of the app’s contact box, is ideal for their peace of mind.
• Studies show that individual buyers will generally pay even a little more than they would at the grocery store to know their food was fresh
• Local restaurants nationwide have embraced the farm to table movement, many of them going so far as to name the farms on their menu.  They certainly use all tools at their disposal to find those farms and your farm could be featured at the French place downtown before you know it

Sales both online and in-person are generated through this app which provides the public with vetted farmers and an easy ordering process.

All work and no play…

Instead of spending all your free time after dinner two nights a week keeping up with a hundred little details, why not take thirty minutes now and get ahead of all this?  Thirty minutes.  Once.  Or all your free time after dinner.  Often.  One app to take care of so many aspects of your business without consuming your ‘me’ time.

Do you want to worry about maintaining a website?  Just upload a few pictures and a short bio and you are all good to go.  No buying a domain, no paying for hosting, no jockeying for position in web searches.  No hassles at all.  Just update your products and prices as needed.

Would you like to create and keep up with an extensive customer database?  Do you file them alphabetically by last name, or should you group them by order size?  Is Ms. Peterson every other Tuesday or was she the one that switched to Thursday?  Was that address you jotted down for the Simpson account correct?   Locally Grown comes with a user base already in place and organized, offering easy contact with the customers through the app should you need any extra information not already provided.

Does invoicing and keeping up with all things billing related sound like fun?  Doesn’t same day payments directly to your bank account sound even better?

Accept decline or update orders with a single tap!  No co-ordinating phone calls.  No voice mails that don’t get heard until it’s too late.  Simple, efficient communication.

You can always spend what little extra time you can find in the day tending to all the small details.  Much worse choices have been made by people over the years (both CBS and NBC said no to Monday Night Football before ABC agreed to it).  On the other hand, you could have all these weights taken off your shoulders for free.  I know I’ve mentioned it before, but it really does bear repeating.  Free!  What are you waiting for?

If you’re serious about upping your farm game, the choice is clear

Fifty thousand customers are waiting to learn about your farm.  All you have to do is visit the app store and you’re on your way!  Half an hour today saves you hundreds of hours over the rest of your life.  Are you ready to start selling?