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  • From: Road's End Farm <organic87 AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] a "hooray!" for farmers' markets
  • Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2010 11:24:39 -0400


On Apr 1, 2010, at 2:56 AM, KAKerby AT aol.com wrote:

I imagine this is going to sound bizarre to some of you, but I just wanted to shout a little "hooray!" that today marked my very first ever attendance as a vendor at a farmer's market. 

Welcome to the markets!

[. . . ], pricing it according to some black-arts combination of fact, custom and intuition

I like that phrasing.



The eggs sold out within three hours, which was very gratifying since I raised the price above what I had charged the CSA as recently as 2008.  I fretted that price change until I had one guy come by and say that wow, I had really good prices for eggs.  

Rivka's rule of thumb about pricing feedback:
If everybody tells you your price is too high, your price is probably too high.
If nobody tells you your price is too high, your price is almost certainly much too low.


Many of them had never heard of a CSA before (which also blew my mind since SURELY everyone knows what a CSA is!) 

I think actually there are still a lot of people who've never heard of CSA's, and a lot more who may have heard the term but don't understand it. It's a relatively new marketing model, at least in the USA.

 
So tonight I go to bed knowing that I can go back to market, goof up on prices, display or whatever and still come out alive at the end.  And the better I get at gauging moods and juggling pricing and how much to bring each day, the better my sales will be.  Which is sort of the normal recipe for life anyway, isn't it?  So if anyone on the list has agonized over whether to attend a market, I'd say go for it. 

Yes indeed.

Bear in mind: there will be occasional grumbling customers, and there will be bad days. It takes a while to build up your customer base; but hang in there, make sure that you show up rain or shine, and (presuming your quality is up there) you will build up that pool of steady customers that will keep you going -- and will tell their friends.

I remember one market day at which a customer stood at the stand and berated me for about ten minutes for the price of my garlic; she kept saying that she could buy it for 25ยข per bulb in Texas and how could I charge so much? (I managed to bite my tongue on "go take a plane to Texas, then, why don't you?" and instead just kept listing all the work that goes into that garlic.) One of my regulars was standing right next to the complainer, listening to all this. She didn't say a word; she just picked out several of my largest bulbs, "huge" (over 4 ounce) bulbs going for 2.00 each, and bought them. I still grin about that one whenever I think of it.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale






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