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Tips to Increase Web Store Traffic

2/14/2014

 
Happy Valentine's Day Farmigo family! This week, we'd like to offer you a couple of tips to help your members fall in love with your web store (who knew Cupid was into marketing?!).

Specifically, we'd like to remind you of the three ways your members access your web store, and two tips to get in touch with them to remind them to shop!

There are three ways that members can access your web store:
  1.  Through their account page: 
  2.  Via a link sent in an email
  3.  Via your website

1. The Accounts Page

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Members  can access your web store by logging into their account and then clicking Web Store in the upper right hand corner.

Did you know? Your preview mode of a member's account is exactly like the member view except for the web store link.

You'll see everything on this member's page except the "Web Store" link circled in red.

2. Emailing Members

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While members can access your web store through their account, sometimes a little extra reinforcement really helps. 

Consider setting up an email alert or template to send to members with a link to your web store. 

You can add the store link using this dynamic field:
[Link to Store]

3. Linking to your Web Store on your Website

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Finally, you should be sure to prominently feature a link to your web store on your web site. When members or prospective members visit your web page, this makes it easy for them to navigate towards shopping!

Automatically Remind Members to Shop! 
Delivery Date Alert Emails

Automatically remind members to go shopping in your webstore with a Delivery Day Alert email. These emails will automatically trigger a number of days before a members delivery, so you can set one up to remind them to go shopping before the web store closes. For example, if your store access hours close 3 days before a delivery, you should send members an email 4 days before reminding them that this is there last chance to add on to their order this week!

Technical Advisor Tip: This automatic alert is editable, so you can always go in and let members know about new or featured products (maybe a vegetable bouquet for Valentine's Day? Just a thought...) 

Encourage Members Who Have Not Placed an Order to Shop
Orders Not Submitted Filter

Reminding members that they can add items from your store to their subscription is a good way to kick-start higher participation from existing members. We recommend sending an email to all of your members who have not placed a store order.

Technical Advisor Tip: 
You can use filters in your Farmigo dashboard to send this email only to members who do not have not placed a store order. That way, you can add member-relevant text to the email and avoid spamming customers who are actively using your web store. 

To do this, you can take the following steps:
1) Go to Members --> Orders
2) Click on the "Order Status" drop-down tab to filter by Order Status.
3) Select Order Status = Not Submitted, and click "Find"

Presto! This will filter for members who have a subscription but do not have a web order for that week, and you can email them in one batch:
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Using Farmigo's Store Comments to Gather Testimonials

2/7/2014

 
Did you know?
  • 70% of customers consult reviews or ratings before making a purchase (Business Week, 2008)
  • A highly-rated product will increase the likelihood of purchase for 55% of consumers (Econsultancy, 2010)
  • 63% of customers are more likely to purchase from a site if it has ratings or reviews (Evoc Insights, 2006)

Having strong customer testimonials to add to a page while people are exploring can be a very effective tool to boost sales! Great news: you can use the Farmigo system in order to start getting testimonials from your customers!

Using your Web Store to Gather Customer Testimonials

You can do this by activating a comments box in your webstore. To do this, follow these steps:
    1) In your dashboard, go to "Settings"
    2) Go to the tab, "Store"
    3) In the field, "Store comments label" put text encouraging members to leave a testimonial. 

Here are a couple examples of what you could say:
  • Let us know how our farm has made a difference in your life!
  • Leave a review to let us know how we're doing!
  • Tell us about your experience with our farm!
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*Important Note: Web store comments need to be collected on a weekly basis

Any comments you receive through your store comments box will be attached to a member's weekly store order, and can be accessed through your Labels and Distribution reports. Make sure that when you download your Labels or Distribution report, you save the comments in a memorable location, as they will disappear once the delivery day passes!

Tips for Selecting Testimonials

  • Try to find testimonials that cite specific benefits of ordering from your business- a testimonial that says "Your convenient pick up locations save me hours of shopping time on the weekends!" is a lot more effective in convincing people in the power of your produce than, "Great product! Love what you do!"
  • Include names, locations, and photos as much as possible. Assigning the testimonial to a real person helps to instill trust in the credibility of the review.
  • Don't over-edit!! Making light edits for grammar and punctuation are OK, but make sure that you leave the content and tone of the message as it is. 

Check out this list of great resources for more advice on how to build your testimonials to be productive and effective:

http://unbounce.com/online-marketing/perfect-your-customer-testimonials/

SYSTEM UPDATE - Improved Setting to Help with Store Inventory

8/30/2013

 
This week the software development team released a software update which will reduce the chance that a member will order an item that is out of stock from your web store. It has been observed that members may place items in their cart and take a long time to check out.  When this happens, the items they placed in their cart might have already been sold to another member.

To show the member an updated store inventory, the member will be asked to refresh their current store session when the following conditions are met:
  1. The member's store session has been open for more than 60 minutes.
  2. There are items in the store with less than 20 orders available.
If a member meets these 2 conditions when editing their web store order, the following will happen:

  1. This message will pop up: "Your session has timed out. Click OK to refresh the page and get up-to-date information."
  2. When the member clicks "OK", the web store page will refresh and any changes that the member made to their order during that session will not be saved.
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Managing Meat Deposits

4/26/2013

 
Many of you want to offer items that require a deposit, such as a Thanksgiving Turkey or a large portion of meat.  If you want to be able to accept and track deposits for an item that will be delivered in the future, we have outlined some guidelines below to help you manage this in your Farmigo system. 

There are two different methods that we recommend:

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  1. Accepting Deposits as a Share or Option: This method is recommend for Seasonal configurations.  This method is NOT recommended for Ongoing configurations.
  2. Accepting Deposits as a Store Item:  This method is strongly recommend for Ongoing configurations.  Seasonal configurations may use it too.

Click "Read More" to read the rest of this tip.

Read More

Methods for Accepting Payment in the Web Store

7/12/2012

 
Upselling is a concept that has been used in restaurants for decades. You order chips and salsa at the Mexican place down the road and they say, "would you like guac with that?" and lo and behold you get your bill and you have $8 worth of guacamole added on. Can't complain though, I love guacamole, so it's a win-win. 

By bringing the CSA model online,  you now have the capability to upsell. "Would you like an extra lb of tomatoes with your veggie share?"   Being able to sell add-ons to a member's existing share helps increase sales while keeping Italian grandmothers happy that they can cook and can enough pasta sauce to feed their family for the entire year. This week's tip discusses three options for accepting payments in the web store.

PLEASE NOTE:  A store can either be set up as Balance, On Checkout, or On Delivery. These 3 payment methods cannot be used in conjunction with each other.  
Check or Cash are not accepted in the web store. Members can only choose from E-check, credit card, and paypal.

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Balance - “put it on my tab”

The member puts money on account with the farm and all web store purchases are deducted from the member's balance. This reminds me of when I went to the pool in the summertime and my parents put money on account at the snack bar. Every time I ordered a new laffy taffy, my total would be deducted from my tab. I was friends with the snack bar staff, so when my account dropped below $0, I was able to continue ordering as much candy as my heart desired. My parents were responsible for paying the balance at the end of the season. If they wanted to, they could choose to walk away and never show their face at the community pool again, but, they needed some way to tire me out, so they always paid.

We recommend using the on balance method along with an automatic renewal payment method that will refill a customer’s account once their balance drops to $0. If you do not have a pre-approve limit set up in your system that will automatically charge members once their balance falls below a certain level, you must monitor member's accounts and choose to continue delivering to them or put them on hold until they add money to their account.

One of the benefits of the on balance method is that you can reward customers for putting money on account which gets you more money up front and ensures that the customer will spend a certain amount with you throughout the season. We can set up pre-payment plans that give customers bonus credit that can used to purchase items in the store. For example, you can ask customers to put $250 on account with you and give them a $20 bonus. 


These are the payment plans found on the make payment screen in the member account view:

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We find that offering a few different pre-payment plans is most effective. For example:
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At Checkout - the amazon model

When a farm sets their store up for members to pay at checkout, the member is prompted for his payment information at checkout and a charge is initiated at that time. This is similar to using amazon.com where you pay for your items at checkout in order to receive them. This is what most people are used to when shopping online so it provides an ease of use for your customers. The best part is that you never have to worry about balances and members do not need to add money to their account in order to purchase something. 

Here is what paying at checkout looks like:

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On Delivery - the rental car model
The payment on delivery model is similar to paying for a rental car. You give the company your credit information, take the car, and when you return, you pay for the number of miles you traveled, your gasoline, and any damage done to the car. The rental company doesn't charge you until they know how much they need to charge you.

Setting up the store payment method for on delivery is very similar to this and is particularly useful when selling a product by weight.  If a rancher for example sells ground beef priced at $6.00/lb., and the final weight comes in at 1.05 lbs., the total cost is actually $6.30.  In this case, the admin can change the quantity from 1 to 1.05 in the member's account from the Dashboard, the system will recalculate the total cost, and the member will be charged the correct amount after delivery.

When a farm sets their store up for members to pay on delivery, the system determines if the member has payment information on file.  If they do not, they are prompted for payment information and are charged the morning after delivery. 


Here is what paying on delivery will look like:

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Another tip:
Farmigo can allow non shareholders to access your web store and purchase items as needed (not recommended for systems set up with on balance). We can also set a minimum purchase amount.  Remember, however, that this minimum will apply to shareholders as well as non-shareholders. If you allow guest access, non members with access to your store link will go through the following process:

Opening up the store to non-shareholders may be a good way to pre-sell items to ensure that your time spent at market is time well spent. If you are considering allowing guest access to your web store, contact support@farmigo.com so we can discuss how to set it up and how it will work in your system.

Understanding Member Access Hours

6/13/2012

 
Today, we want to explain how member access hours function. There are two parts to controlling member access hours. 

1. Sign-Up: New Member Sign Up Cut Off
The number of days before delivery a new member must sign up by or their first delivery date will be pushed to the following week

2. Store:  Upcoming Order Hours  
The time members can login and make changes to their upcoming order i.e. change a pick up site/add items in the webstore
 
How do I know what my current member access hours are?
If you are unsure of your current member access hour settings, you can check them in the settings area of the dashboard.
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How Does it Work?

New Member Sign-Up Cut-Off
The new member sign-up timeframe is controlled by setting a fixed number of days to cut off sign-ups before that coming week's delivery. For example, above, the new member sign-up delay is set to 1 day before delivery. This means that for a new member to receive that coming Sunday's delivery, the new member must sign up by Saturday at midnight. If a member signs up once the cut-off time has passed their first delivery will not be scheduled for the upcoming delivery. Instead, the member's account will be put on a temporary hold for that week's delivery and then they will be schedule to receive their first delivery for the following Sunday.
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If you decide that you actually do want to deliver to the new member for the upcoming delivery, you can go into their member card and activate their delivery as shown below.  But use caution before removing the delivery hold!  As soon as the new member signed up, they may have received an automated email indicating when they may expect their first delivery.  If you remove the hold for that coming week's delivery, remember to email them and notify them that their first delivery date has changed.  Also, if you pro-rate you shares, please be aware that the new member will not have paid for this extra delivery.
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Ask Yourself: How many days in advance do you need to know about a new member sign-up in order to prepare their share for the upcoming delivery? One day, two days, three days? Maybe you need an entire week. If you need your sign-up delay changed, please let us know by emailing support@farmigo.com.

Upcoming Order Hours
You may control times during which a member may adjust their upcoming order based on the delivery day.  For each of your delivery days, we can set a opening hour and closing hour for members to log into their account and make the following changes for upcoming orders:
 
1. Put their upcoming delivery on hold*
2. Change their pick up location*
3. Update their subscription*
4. Add items to their delivery from the Web Store
5. Customize their share (for CSA's doing customized boxes)
 

*Members can only take these actions if you allow them to. These settings may be changed by a Farmigo support team member.

Opening Hour
The earliest members can access their accounts for an upcoming delivery is the day after their most recent delivery. For example, if they receive a delivery on Wednesday, they will be able to begin making changes for the upcoming order on Thursday morning. If you want time to update the web store, we can set the open hour to a later time to allow for changes in inventory/item availability.

Closing Hour
Again, you want to ask yourself, "How many days in advance do I need to know about things like delivery holds/change in delivery location, as well as total orders placed in the web store in order to prepare an upcoming delivery?"

Closing hours can be set to a different time for each delivery day.  Therefore, each delivery day can have a different closing time or alternatively, they can each have the same closing time.
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Same closing time:

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Different Closing Times/Days:


BEST PRACTICE!
Make sure that you communicate your hours with members clearly. Here are some of the best ways to keep your members informed:
 
1. List hours in your policy and on your website. 
 
2. Mention hours in the instructions tab for each pick up site (Routes Module) so members will see them when they login to their account. 
 
3. Set up an email alert that sends out the final day that members must make changes for their upcoming order reminding them that they must log in and make the necessary changes. 

Remember, if you have any questions or need changes to be made to your member access hours, please email us at support@farmigo.com

Spring Cleaning! Unclutter Your Webstore

3/20/2012

 
This week, I want to introduce a new feature called Box Item Variation, a feature that can help organize items in your web store. Most farms like to sell things in different quantities, i.e. 1 lb vs. 5 lbs of potatoes. Previously, each of these items had to be listed as a separate item in the web store as seen below. This causes clutter and confusion in the webstore.
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As a solution, we have created Box Item Variation, a feature that allows you to set up one item with multiple quantities. A drop down list will appear next to the item so that members may choose the quantity that they would like to purchase.
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Here's how it works; once we enable Box Item Variation for you, a new tab will become available in the item card called Variation. Too add different quantities type in the price, quantity, unit, number available, select published, and click add. 
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To edit a variation once it has been added, click on the field and it will change to an editable area. 
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There are two ways to remove a variation from the web store. You can change it's status to a draft so that it remains in the system, but does not appear in the store. If you set the status of every variation to draft, the drop down menu will still appear for the item. To completely delete the variation and the drop down menu in the store, press the X to the right of it. 
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How to enable Box Item Variation 
To enable this feature for your web store, email support@farmigo.com and let us know you would like Box Item Variation enabled in your dashboard. Hope this helps! 

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