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  • From: "Rick Hopkins" <rdhopkins AT americanpasturage.com>
  • To: <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Market-farming] shipping meet
  • Date: Sat, 8 Feb 2003 13:44:33 -0600

Caryl,

We ship, but only if we can't find a local grower for a customer. Still we
receive repeat calls due to quality or other issues.

Packing and shipping is expensive, but when you compare local prices such as
NY, Chicago, LA, Seattle, Tampa our meats are competitively priced even with
the shipping costs. Here is our shipping page:
http://www.americanpasturage.com/ship.htm We buy packaging in quantity and
have worked out an arrangement with the dry ice supplier. Our packaging and
shipping costs are a pass through to the customer. We have found that in
larger quantities on a regular basis it can be more economical for the
customer to supply them with good quality ice chest on their first order and
have them ship it back to you empty for the next order. I like this
practice as it reduces waste.

One thing you might check is to see if there is a FedEx ground terminal near
you. Some locations are managing overnight to regional locations at half
the price of 2nd Day regular FedEx.

I think our repeat customers buy because of trust in quality and living up
to our responsibilities as a vendor.

One of the things we have found with regular customers, is that price our
price is not a great concern. What really gets their attention is when you
do something special for them such as a token gift of meat, spices, or
sending them a recipe by E-mail after you get back home. If you can let
them know that you are thinking of them, they will think of you especially
when talking with their friends.

BTW, we give recommendations to potential customers from producer listings
on the Homestead Foods web site http://www.homesteadfoods.com I am not
going to spend a lot of time making referrals to producers I cannot verify
or have no personal relationship with as keeping up with that kind
information can be time consuming.

Rick H.



-----Original Message-----
From: market-farming-admin AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:market-farming-admin AT lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Caryl
Elzinga
Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 11:07 AM
To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [Market-farming] shipping meet


Another question for you direct marketers of beef (and other meats). We
have received a few inquiries into shipping (especially around Christmas
when some of our regulars wanted us to ship for Christmas presents for
them). We did some preliminary checking and found that the shipping cost
for, say a 20lb pack, was about $50! That doesn't include packaging costs
and labor. Our meat is frozen, so it would have to be shipped on dry ice 2
day. Do any of you ship? Is it worth the hassle?? Are there cheaper
ways??

We find, like Rick H., that what makes customers buy from us is that they
can look us in the eyes, talk to us, (my husband has an amazing memory for
names), know that they are buying animals that WE raised, and develop a
trust of us and their beef. Price is rather irrelevant to these folks, they
want to buy from us. But doesn't price become critical in a shipping
situation? I look around the web and find quite a range of prices (many
below where we can economically justify this effort--some apparently at
commodity level, which just puzzles me), all from places that look nice.
Wouldn't the customer simply buy from the cheapest place in the absence of
the personal relationship??

Caryl


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