Small Axe Farm started off with an informational website for their farm, but soon needed a complex e-commerce platform to help manage their CSA Share (Community Support Agriculture) and wholesale orders. Their customers order exactly what they want each week and those orders are dropped off at different locations. The website needed to account for inventory (shared for multiple item sizes), manage customers’ balances, set pricing tiers for multiple wholesalers vs. CSA customers, and print out pick lists, a sticker label for each orders’ box, and create custom sales reports.
While there are propriety software options to help manage farm-based sales, it was difficult for them to find one platform that does everything they need.
The Solution? A super-custom website for a vegetable farmer
I developed a WooCommerce store that handled the complexities of dealing with fresh produce. What’s great about WooCommerce is its flexibility which we used extensively.
- CSA customers receive credits on their account that can be used for purchasing produce each week
- The farmers can print out a pick list (by location or type of customer)
- The farmers can print each order on a label to place on each box to know what produce belongs there and its delivery location
- Pricing varies by customer (CSA vs. Wholesale vs. Chefs)
- Inventory is set each week and items will sell out when they are all purchased
- Wholesale customers can place orders using a form rather than the traditional e-commerce storefront
- There are multiple payment options (using a credit, paying by check or with paypal)
- Unlimited custom reports to see sales by customer, sales by customer type, sales by product etc.
This website could be a good model for how to handle e-commerce sales for a vegetable CSA share. While there is a lot of work that goes into weekly planning, the website handles some of the legwork.
Curious what’s possible for your website?