Updated July 2020 – View the Farmers Selling Online webinar series from VAFMA and VSU Small Farm Outreach Program.
Online Sales Platforms most used in Virginia:
- Farmers Guide to Direct Sales Platforms
- Lulu’s Local Food https://www.luluslocalfood.com/
- Virginia Market Maker https://va.foodmarketmaker.com/
- CSAWare (a service of Local Harvest) https://www.csaware.com/
- Barn2Door https://www.barn2door.com/
- Local Food Marketplace https://home.localfoodmarketplace.com/
- Local Line https://site.localline.ca/
March 25, 2020 – There are many online platforms available to markets and vendors for pre-ordering and online ordering. These are the ones shared with us:
Lulu’s Local Food ,What’s Good, Local Line, Harvie , Food4All., SquareSpace
Here are example instructions provided by Lynchburg Community Market of how to handle curbside pick-up orders:
- All orders must be prebagged and ready for delivery Saturday morning
- All orders must be placed before vendor’s arrival at Market
- This means we cannot take any walk-in or call-in orders day of
- Ask for prepayment of orders
- This helps keep customers moving as quickly as we can
- If prepayment isn’t available vendors must wear single use gloves
- Deliver order, then take payment, then WASH YOUR HANDS
- Hours on Saturday are relaxed
- Invite your customers to pick up before 7 if possible/interested
- We have to put a hard limit on 10 pickup customers.
- If all 10 spaces are full, we will ask customers to circle back
- Please try to stagger customer pickups if they’re asking about pickup times
- Customer procedure
- Staff checks who customer has order with and directs them to parking space
- Staff can run orders – only if prepaid – staff cannot handle money
- Follow above procedure for delivering pickup
- If customer is paying with SNAP let us know! Our SNAP terminal is mobile
If you have had a positive experience with another platform, please let us know.