market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Market Farming
List archive
- From: "Beth Spaugh" <lists AT rhomestead.com>
- To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [Market-farming] mid-week slump
- Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2006 20:22:55 -0500
We have an excellent Wednesday morning market in Lake
Placid, NY. Lake Placid is a summer second-home area, and the thought is that
people are too busy hiking/boating/entertaining guests on Saturdays, plus with
special events (Ironman, horse show, etc), traffic is a hassle, and it needed to
be a weekday market. We are producer only. We limit nonfarm vendors to less than
50% of the vendors. Among farm vendors we have wine, wildcrafted mushrooms,
herbal soap, as well as produce, cheese, meat and eggs. The cheese, bread, and
meat/eggs are big draws to the market.
We have two large (2 stall) veg vendors, mine was 1 1/2
stalls, a smaller two stall produce and plants person, and a flowers/dried
arrangements/veggie one stall person. I noticed after Labor Day
when the smaller veggie people dropped out that my sales increased.
The last four markets were between $1000 and just over $1300/day for me. Based
on that, although I want all the produce vendors to succeed, I think if we had
one less those there would do better and I would gear up to provide more. The
market manager agrees we don't need more veggie vendors. We also have
outstanding baked goods, organic vegetarian ready-to-eat vendor, a paninni
vendor, a hand carved bowl vendor, and handmade furniture vendor, and other
"crafts".This was our third year and during the height of the season we had
between 20 and 30 vendors (I was too busy to count, but it was lots more than
previous years). This was our third year. Our website is http://lakeplacidmarket.com.
The meat folks drive over two hours
to come. The winery is over 3 hours away and has hired a local chef/mushroom
gatherer to do their stall. One veggie vendor drives two hours. It is an hour
fdrive or me. Our prepared food vendor is now driving 2 1/2 hours to a Saturday
market, which should have lots of folks much closer doing good food, but
apparently not. In other words, extend
your search for strategic vendors outward, but I
assume Allison with your contacts you have done that quite well.
We are planning to move inside to
either Wednesday late afternoon or Saturday morning next fall, going til
Thanksgiving or Christmas. We are changing the time to attract more locals who
work "regular" hours. If we can hook them in the fall, maybe they will make the
effort to come down at lunch during the summer. We were extremely pleased with
the local support this fall (we went until Columbus Day). There were fewer
people, but those who came bought a lot. And, no, Lake Placid is not all rich
folks. Many second home owners are teachers, etc who have had the home in the
family for many years. And I have low income and "working class"
(waitresses, house painters, etc)
customers.
Beth Spaugh From: Jeff & Carol Bunting [mailto:jcbunt AT montanasky.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 2:56 PM To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org Subject: [Market-farming] mid-week slump Our Tuesday evening market finally ended after many
years of smaller vendor turnout. Our customers got used to doing all their
shopping at the Thursday or Saturday markets.
On another note, we don't restrict the number
of vendors who sell the same thing. We let our customers decide
who they purchase from. Free enterprise at work. We are a producer
only market. Our only limit is the available space.
Carol
|
-
[Market-farming] mid-week slump,
Jeff & Carol Bunting, 11/29/2006
-
Re: [Market-farming] mid-week slump,
Beth Spaugh, 11/29/2006
- Re: [Market-farming] mid-week slump, Home Grown Kansas!, 11/30/2006
-
Re: [Market-farming] mid-week slump,
Beth Spaugh, 11/29/2006
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