July 2020 - 17

FARM MARKET & AGRITOURISM
itself. Right now, even the grocery retail
industry doesn't know what its full
costs are when it comes to meeting the
needs of their online customers, but
retailers are trying to fill a need it is
necessary to have a strategy for longterm
profitability.
To keep your existing and new
customers engaged with your online
store consider their interactions with
your market during curbside pick
up or delivery. Are you confirming
what the customer ordered? What
is your process for correcting
mistakes or order errors? Consider
sending a confirmation number to
the customer. Invite the customer
to bring their order along to verify
that they are receiving their desired
items. Know how to find and
monitor your online error rate and
make it a goal to continually reduce
it with your staff.
Consider efficiencies you may
add to your picking and packing
procedures when fulfilling orders.
We all know there is a cost to filling
our market shelves with products.
Employees receive products, place
them on shelves or create displays.
In most cases, we are also paying
employees to pull those products
to fill online orders. If you have
the capacity, consider creating a
dedicated fulfillment space where
employees can fill orders before
products go out to the sales floor
of the market. The cost of getting
products to the shelves and then
picked into an online order bag to
be set aside for curbside pick up or
delivery leaves little room to cover
fulfillment costs.
Think about engaging with your
customers across all demographics
as everyone adjusts to your online
ordering platform. How will you
accommodate older customers who are
not comfortable with ordering online?
Some customers may look online at
the offerings but would rather call you
to place an order. Do you have staff
available to take these orders, is the
fulfillment timeline different and will
the customer have a mechanism to
confirm their order with you after they
hang up the phone?
Ultimately, we are still looking to
solve problems for our customers
and not create any. What happens
if an item comes up as out of stock?
Do you have suggested alternatives
for them? Perhaps you can text
suggested product alternatives to the
customer while the order is being
fulfilled for them to make a live
choice. Your online customer should
have the same enjoyable shopping
experience as your in-store customer.
Marketing will be different for
your online store than your brick
and mortar market. We need some
methods of keeping our online
customers engaged. Recipes for
featured products, videos of cooking
demos and sharing the store of your
farm and market all work. We need
to creatively find ways to keep those
online customers engaged and coming
back the same as we do with our instore
customers. Interactive online
quizzes and surveys provide both an
engagement tool for your customers
but also work to collect information
about what their preferences are so
you can continue to adapt to their
changing shopping habits in the future.
In an article in " Grocery Drive, "
Hillary Reeves, who is vice president of
marketing at Chicory, wrote, " Online
grocery does not need to be convenient,
fun or filled with robots. Perhaps those
could be means to an end, but what
online grocery has to do is fulfill basic
needs. Therefore, it has to be reliable,
quick, affordable and flexible. " FGN
FGN | JULY 2020 | 17
July 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July 2020
