Good Ideas Don't Always Work

It lasted a whole two weeks before meltdowns from both vendors and patrons caused the market management to toss up their hands in frustration and abandon the online ordering system for curbside service through the Local Food Marketplace. It sounded like a great idea, but sometimes reality fails to precipitate positive results.It’s understandable that the pandemic has everyone’s last nerve dangling and we’re all stepping on each other like a polka dancer with two left feet. We want things to get back to normal. We want things to work easily. A little annoyance, ok. Months of constant change on a near weekly basisAs a farmer, I completely understand when things don’t work out as planned, especially those things out of my control. A freak Mothers’ Day frost that kills all the heirloom tomato starts planted from seed, the remnants of a hurricane that took off the barn roof, the cat that eats a dozen turkey poults, when two thirds of the baby goats born die from viral pneumonia, when a market doesn’t work out or closes, or when a processor shuts down or screws up so badly they lose my business—you get the idea.What I have struggled with the most during the pandemic are bright ideas that turn out to be nightmares. I accepted the reality of more work with the logistics of serving my customers, increased costs of doing business and additional time in the office managing online ordering systems. I’ve always had an informal pre-ordering system for my regular customers, but with the advent of COVID19, the Square site had to be solidified into more than just a place for expats to score dog treats.It wasn’t just me. Many fellow vendors ramped up existing online sales, others either spent the time themselves or paid to have an online pre-ordering site up and running by the middle of March. The market itself was pivoting for multiple ways for zero-contact service. The concierge service morphed into curbside. The Farm to Fridge delivery service was created.Along the way, each vendor encountered logistical challenges, met in a way with which they felt best for their business. At the same time the rest of the world was changing along similar lines. Most stores spun up their own online ordering systems and curbside services. It’s easy to drive from Target to Giant to Tractor Supply gathering up orders with a simple press of the van’s automatic tailgate. Why shouldn’t market customers have the same level of service? However, the functionality of a single site for the market versus customers ordering from individual vendors took time to evolve and during this time most of the farmers stabilized their original chaos into a system they and their customers could live with. Being the individuals we are, albeit operating under the umbrella of Central Farm Markets, everyone had a different way for reaching their customers, ordering ahead and getting products into the customers’ hands.I totally understand why customers would want an Amazon-like experience that puts all of the vendors on one site for ordering, but none of us are Amazon. We don’t have massive warehouses full of inventory that an army of laborers pull from 24/4 to be passed off to others for delivery.The Farm to Fridge delivery service matured over the months with the overhaul of the markets’ website and the migration to a profession application, The Local Foods Marketplace, which to its credit, has been around since 2009. To be honest, it was a joy to be able to manage products and inventory through the system myself instead of having to remember if I sent off an email adjusting available inventory before 9 AM on Monday morning.Not all the vendors at the market wanted to participate in the Farm to Fridge service, each for their own valid reasons. Some vendors tried, only to find that the added logistics of picking and packing individual orders for both the market and delivery overwhelming, others sold too much leaving limited inventory for those who continued to physically patronize the markets. Some chose to only sell via pre-orders and others created their own delivery services. Some even chose to forgo any sort of preordering service altogether. Most of us muddled on in ways that settled into a comfortable pattern of delivery, curbside and in-person shopping that we could handle.After a few months, however, needs grew into wants. I saw how customers used the convenience of delivery some weeks and at other times reverting to curbside or pre-ordering directly from vendors when specific items were either unavailable or sold out through the delivery service.  “I forgot to order,” became a regular message through text, voice mail and email, especially from regulars who had been customers through thick and thin for years. How could we say no?With the growing popularity of curbside services, it became apparent that was becoming the way for regulars to shop. It seemed only natural to migrate to an all-in-one site for curbside service, right?Let me explain that an all-in-one system is like an iceberg—patrons only see the tip above the surface. That’s about as far as the analogy goes. Below the surface are layers of moving parts, in the market’s case, over sixty different vendors each with dozens of items. The idea of getting everyone to participate in a single online interface was a utopian idea. Those who chose to do so rapidly understood the ramifications of letting go of the customer-farmer relationship we’ve worked diligently over the years to build.Needless to say, it did not go as planned and unfortunately, the market’s management got caught in the middle. Customers were upset that their regular items were not available through the new curbside system. Vendors were upset that participating in the curbside program created more office logistics and inventory management. Even I will admit to a Saturday afternoon melt-down text to staff when I realized the pick labels had no distinction between delivery and curbside customers sending me back into my office in the middle of packing to figure out who got what.It was at that moment I realized I was now managing five different product fulfillment streams and inventories instead of two. Finding myself in tears on a Saturday night overwhelmed with the prospect of too many moving parts is not a place where I wanted to be. The following day I learned I was far from alone.While the new curbside system may have sounded like a great plan, too many of us were left exasperated with the feeling of I just can’t do this.As I have said, we’re not Amazon. The vendors have spent years developing relationships with patrons over which we’ve all become protective for an assortment of reasons. Poaching customers has always been frowned upon in the farmers market community, but that’s not to say it doesn’t happen. I have weekly customers who have followed me throughout the assorted markets I’ve attended in the city over the years before settling down with Central Farm Markets and I wanted them to have access to their food more so than an anonymous person shopping with the system.Similarly, the management of the market is struggling to figure out how to keep sustainability in our services. Growth of the curbside services has required the addition of more paid market staff. Thus far there has been no cost to either the patrons or the vendors, but the market alone can not absorb all the costs in the long term. Farmers are already struggling with the choice to raise prices with the additional expenses associated with COVID-19.These issues are difficult to discuss amid chaotic times, but as farmers, we’re used to picking ourselves up and moving on when something fails to work out. From a variety of tomato that doesn’t produce well to a breed of chicken that don’t lay as many eggs as the others, we learn, adapt, try something new, and go back to what works. I don’t want to label the curbside ordering through the Local Foods Marketplace as a failure because it’s a well-designed application that works great for the Farm to Fridge Delivery service. It just didn’t work out for everything and that’s OK.I want to thank everyone who gave it a go—customers, vendors, management. We all tried. That doesn’t mean we can’t try again in the future with different circumstances, but for now we’re going to shelve the one-stop shopping online for curbside service.