Shelter
A shelter of some sort is important. You need to be able to keep yourself and your product out of the sun and rain. I use an E-Z Up©. As the name implies, these are easy to put up. Two people can unload and put up an E-Z Up© in a couple of minutes. A smaller E-Z Up© can be put up by one person with a little effort. In the same short amount of time they can be taken down and put away. They use a small amount of space in the vehicle.
When you purchase your shelter choose one that is well lit, airy, inviting and gives you adequate room to set up everything you have to sell. A well-maintained shelter will last years so invest in what you can best afford. Give yourself room for your tables, scale and bags while leaving plenty of space for your customers to move around. A 10 x 10 shelter is a good place to start and works well for many farmers. If your market allows you to set up outside of your shelter you can expand your space by using displays for produce that does not need protection from the sun and rain.
The color of your shelter is important. Solid red is dark but red and white stripes give a rosy glow. Avoid black. Dark blue or green with white stripes works well. You want your display to be bright. Your customers want to be able to see what you have to offer. Yellow and orange are other colors to avoid. They're bright and sunny but have a tendency to make people look pale and jaundiced. You want to look like the picture of health when you're selling your fresh foods. Avoid floral and wild prints that distract from your product. The focus of your display should be your produce.
Anchor your shelter. One gust of wind can lift a shelter off the ground and cause disaster. At the least it's inconvenient to put a shelter back up over a display. At worst, someone can be hurt in the blink of an eye. Some shelters come with pegs that slide through a hole in the base of the leg into the ground. If your shelter doesn't come with pegs you can weight it down with cement-filled buckets. Place the bucket on the outside of the leg and tie it to the leg securely. Be sure the bucket is clean.
Keep the shelter's legs straight. If you're tying the legs down make sure the ties are not going to trip someone.
Don't have more people working in your booth than space comfortably allows. Display
Your display is very important. Color is as important in your display as it is in your shelter. Again, avoid floral prints and wild colors to keep the focus on your produce.
I recommend painted wooden displays. If your tables are not clean and new they need to be covered. My table top is a disaster from years of use but nobody sees this. I use duck cloth table cloths. They're low maintenance and look neat. When your table coverings become dirty they need to be washed. If your find a spot on the cloth while you're at market you should be able to easily rearrange something to cover it up.
This year I'm changing my tables from standard folding tables to painted wood. The table will be built with 4' x 8' sheets of plywood. I'll rip the sheet into 2' x 8' pieces. One side will be cut into slotted pieces for the legs. I'll paint the wood with green enamel. This will eliminate the need to wash cloths.
Customers are less likely to "disturb" a perfect display so make sure it's not picture perfect. Keep everything within comfortable arm's reach. You don't want customers to hesitate to reach for something at the back of your table because the table is too wide. Avoid stacking too high. Three layers of homemade jam look great but not many people are going to take the chance of toppling the pyramid by touching a jar. Instead of stacking I suggest you use risers to lift the back row while keeping it on a sturdy base. Tip your baskets up a little so that customers see more of the surface. You can add a little angle without causing the food to spill out.
If you have non-food products keep them separate from food products. We make and sell handmade soap. It's kept in a display box on a table but not touching food. I keep the soap on the right with a roll of plastic bags, a small stack of sandwich-sized paper bags and an empty work spot between the food.
When you create a low display try to avoid making the customer bend too far over. Most of us are at least a little self conscious when we're bending over.
Be aware of your state's laws on displaying food. In Maine food takes on a new life when it comes out of the dirt. It was grown in the dirt but when it's been picked it can't go back to the dirt. We are required to keep our food a minimum of 6" off the ground.
Fill your tables. Customers will walk to a booth that looks worthy of their time. Let food "spill" into each other. Place foods that go together side by side such as pearl onions and spring peas. You can creatively rearrange your containers to make your tables look fuller as the day goes by. If you're down to a very small amount of produce call it a day and head home.
Be sure your buckets, bins, baskets and other containers are clean and in good repair. I keep a set of baskets for the garden and a set for farmers market. When a basket becomes too worn to look nice it's demoted to the garden. Plastic washes up well and is sturdy. You should be able to get years of use from plastic bins. If you're using baskets with anything that might be wet you can line the basket with a cloth. Tossing the cloth into the washer to remove tomato juice is a lot easier than trying to clean the wooden basket. Five gallon buckets are handy. Krylon® Fusion is excellent spray paint for plastic. It doesn't require a lot of preparation and dries in 15 minutes.
You need clear easy to read prices on your produce. I keep a chalkboard tied to the front leg of my E-Z Up©. It says:
Thyme For Ewe Farm
Talmadge
across the top. This is my farm's name and the town I live in. People are interested in who you are and where you're from. "Where's Talmadge?" is a great way to start a conversation. Write BIG. You want people to read what you have from a reasonable distance. You don't want one customer standing directly in front of your price list reading small print. This blocks the list from the view of other customers. When you sell out of something draw a line through the item so that customers know what you had. They'll ask you if you're going to have it again next week. If you know you're going to have something new next week include it on your board. Give the customer something to look forward to and bring them back to your booth. Next Week: CORN
Avoid taping your signs to the front of the table where customers will block them. There's lots of room above your head at the back of the booth. The Customer
Without the customer we have no business. Develop a relationship with your customers. Engage people in conversation. Positive reinforcement, even in the simple form of a nod, makes a difference. Get to know your customers. Learn and use their names. Make sure your customers know your name. They want to know their farmers. The social aspects of farmers market are important. You can strike up a great conversation with a customer who is waiting in line to pay. "Hi Trudy! What did you do with those tomatoes you bought last week?" Include other people in this conversation. Encourage folks to share ideas out loud. You'll quickly learn which customers are good conversationalists from those who would rather not speak to a lot of people. Don't put introverts on the spot. You'll make everyone uncomfortable.
Make yourself available as much as possible. If you see a customer whose hands are filling up take a bag to them. At the same time, don't hover and make the customer feel pressured or rushed. "My name is Robin. If you need me just yell."
Get customers to touch. When they're looking at something pick one up and hand it to them. While you're handing them a head of broccoli talk with them. "We picked the broccoli fresh this morning." If you're allowed to offer samples use the tomato someone bruised as samples.
And speaking of samples, do find out what your state's law says. In Maine I can give a whole tomato as a sample but without the proper license and conditions I cannot slice a tomato and give out pieces.
Someone's bound to come to your booth and in a loud voice say, "WHY is that CUCUMBER so EXPENSIVE?? I can buy them for half that price at the store." This is opportunity. Don't bother explaining the cost of gas, the time it took or how hard you work in the hot sun. A simple explanation is all you need. Explain freshness and quality. A suggestion that the customer try "just one this week" is a great way to start a conversation. You, The Farmer
You might grow, raise or make the best product in the county but if you're unappealing you can have a rough time selling your product. We farmers have dirt under our nails and streaks on our forehead where sweat ran through dirt. And there's that stuff on our boots. We can be a grubby bunch. Folks don't want to associate food and dirt. Clean under your nails when you scrub your hands. If you're harvesting before you leave for market be sure to leave yourself time to shower. I don't remember ever meeting a glamorous farmer but do be clean and neat. Make sure your clothes are clean. Leave your ripped up jeans and dirty boots at the farm and wear something presentable to market.
If you aren't good at sales find someone who is to bring to market with you. You don't have to be bubbly and extremely outgoing but you do need to be articulate and willing to interact with customers. I couldn't sell anything when I first started. It was painful. I hated the feeling that came with asking someone to give me their hard earned money in exchange for a bar of soap or a vegetable. You too? Get over it. You work as hard as anyone else and you have a quality product. You deserve a fair and sustainable wage for what you do. On an occasion where sales mattered a great deal more than usual I took my step-mother, Donna, with me. Donna used to sell real estate. She knows what to say, how to say it, when to say it and how to engage people. I learned a lot that weekend and now go to market with great confidence. Know your product. Be able to talk about it. Force those words out of your mouth if that's what it takes. Fear starts from not feeling like you're in control. Take control. With practice it will get easier.
Keep busy. Straighten out your bags, refill your business cards, label jars of preserves, straighten your display or shine tomatoes. Find something to do without looking too busy to be interrupted. Keep your hands out of your pockets. Standing with your hands in your pockets or arms crossed signals someone to not bother you. Gesture with open arms and hands. Use a little animation but don't flail around. Smile. Let your customers know you're happy to see them. If you're sitting down when the market is slow be sure to leap to your feet when customers are approaching. Body language matters! Got a great body? Or not such a great body? Either way, keep yourself covered and respectable. You want your customers to take you as the serious business person you are.
Don't speak negatively in your booth. If another vendor comes to visit and starts complaining you should quickly and politely shush her. Keep your attitude positive and share your smiles.
Be reliable. If you're at market every week your customers know you'll be there. You'll build a steady clientele. If you tell a customer you'll set aside 20 pounds of tomatoes for her next week make sure you have them. I keep a small notebook and pen in my back pocket so that I can write down that tomato order. If you know you can't be at market next week be sure to let your regular customers know. "I won't be here next week (or in two weeks). I'm going out west to visit our daughter!" Customers won't begrudge you a short vacation.
Tips to Keep Things Running Smoothly
The Weekly Bin
I keep a Rubbermaid bin packed with things I need every week. The bin holds the roll of plastic produce bags, a bag of sandwich-sized paper bags, large paper bags, plastic shopping bags, the scale, table coverings, risers, price signs, chalk and chalkboard eraser, paper towels, a roll of tape, permanent markers, pens and a pad of paper. I keep my WIC Farmers Market Nutrition Program poster in the bin. Tuck in your credit card supplies if you accept credit cards. On hot days I add a wet washcloth so that I can duck my head into the truck to wash my face. After market I cash out and return the money box with next week's change back to the bin. If you've washed your table cloths and basket liners don't forget to put them back.
Certified scales are expensive but well worth the money. I paid a little more than $200 for my Chatillon® hanging scale. It sounds expensive but this is a one-time purchase. Good scales will last practically forever. It costs me $5 a year to have them inspected by the USDA inspector (probably varies by state). You can quickly recover the price of the scales by selling by the pound instead of by the piece. It's probably not legal for you to use uncertified scales and "add a little to be safe" in your state. When you're in business you're most likely to stay in business if you keep it legal. And beyond that, it would be embarrassing to have an inspector show up and close you down because you're illegal. Keep your scale conveniently located.
Keep bags and scales convenient for your customers. I keep bags behind my main table and another set hanging off the frame of my E-Z Up©. Scales are expensive but built to last. Unless you've got children swinging off them (don't hesitate to tell them to stop!) your customers aren't going to hurt the scales. We're living in a time of expected convenience so take advantage of it.
In The End
Don't be overwhelmed by all there is to remember. You'll learn things over time what I haven't covered here. Few of us walked into farmers market the first week and knew everything we needed to be doing. Give yourself time at the beginning of the season to learn how to efficiently pack your vehicle. Practice setting up before you get to market. Look at pictures of other displays for ideas. Be flexible. Have fun!
Robin Follette is a market farmer who owns Thyme For Ewe Farm in Maine. Robin, husband Steve and daughter Taylor farm 45 acres of diversified vegetable crops, a woodlot and a small collection of rare breeds livestock and poultry.
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