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E-Commerce Best Practices

I’m Jeremy Bloom (a.k.a. the Internet Farmer). Being a software nerd of over 25 years, I’ve helped small-scale farmers and food business owners with their online needs. I have experience working on farms and creating some of the first co-op buying software out there. After teaching a class on E-commerce Best Practices for the recent Ag and Food Producers Academy I thought I would share some of the main takeaways. We’ve come a long way in recent years with E-commerce thanks to the pandemic, and in the local food scene it’s become a game changer. It’s been an interesting twist to the online sales world during this odd time in our history. 

1. Cyber Security

This includes your domain name access, usernames/passwords and webmasters.

Control your domain name. 

  • Which means, have a username and password for access to your domain so you can make changes if need be. If you don’t have access, question who you are working with. 
  • Why do you need access? When your site goes down because your friend didn’t renew it and has left to sail the open sea, you’re not going to be happy when you’re offline until they get back.

Manage your usernames and passwords

  •  E-commerce connects to banks, emails, personal customer information, and is the lifeline to your sales. 
  • In many cases, you can set up a user name and password to give limited access to someone you’re working with. It can be a pain, but remember to change the password when the person is done working with you. 
  • Get a password manager like LastPass. This tool saves tons of time on so many levels of managing usernames and passwords.

Friends and family can be webmasters, but not professionally. 

  • Software is fun to tinker with and anyone can set up a domain and website that looks awesome on the surface. But are they thinking of your best interest for the long haul? 
  • Whether it’s your friend, a family member or a webmaster, do not let them set up a domain if you don’t get a username and password to it. You want to have direct control over the billing. 

2. Analytics 

E-commerce helps you see successes and can correct errors in your thinking.

Google Analytics example

Track past performance  Read more E-Commerce Best Practices

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First Ever Ag and Food Producers Academy: Complete!

 

On March 12th at the Learning Farm, we wrapped up the first ever Ag & Food Producers Academy. Over the course of 8 weeks Academy participants had the opportunity to attend a variety of business and marketing classes tailored to small scale food and farm businesses. Four courses were held online during weeknights for 3-4 weeks. Topics led by specialists and educators included, Social Media Management, Business and Financing, E-Commerce For Producers and Food Businesses and Making Food Products in New York State. As a fairly new Educator here at CCE, who works with food producers and farmers looking to boost their marketing, I found myself teaching and leading the social media course. It was a great opportunity to blend the online social media marketing world with the realities of running your own food and farm business. You can read more about the specific topics and instructors HERE. While the majority of the learning took place online, the closing event allowed us to meet each other in-person and share conversations over some delicious food. 

Participants talking over some freshly brewed tea

We had a wide range of guest presenters and speakers such as Lissa Goldstien of Wild Work Farm talking about her ECommerce platform and Chrissy Claudio of Simply C Farm explaining how she organizes her finances. Participants were also able to watch an interview with Food And Ferment co-owner Carly Dougherty explaining how they’ve scale their value added food business and hear from Dillion Kleepetar of Farmstead catering talking about how to best approach a social media strategy, just to name a few. It was a pleasure to hear all of their insights and stories and allowed for some great questions and conversations, and proved to be some participants favorite part of the classes. One participant shared,  “The guest speakers were very inspiring, and hearing how they incorporated different e-commerce platforms into their businesses was very informative.” 

Read more First Ever Ag and Food Producers Academy: Complete!

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Hoof & Horn in Downtown Potsdam

In December, the Local Foods team visited the newest food business in downtown Potsdam, the Hoof & Horn Butcher and Eatery. The LaClair family, with roots in Hermon and Saranac Lake, returned to northern New York eager to contribute to the local food scene. With experience as a chef and culinary instructor, Jonathan LaClair has the passion and skills to open up a farm-to-table whole animal butchery and eatery.   Jon shares, “The big thing with us is that we are trying to utilize every part of an animal that we can.”

Charcuterie boards are available to order for any event. All of the cheeses and cured meats are sourced from New York State.

What will you find at Hoof and Horn?  “We have our display case with all our raw cuts in it. We try to have some staples like New York strips and ribeyes when possible. But you will find some different cuts like the picanhas, sirloin steaks. We do a lot of beef tips and several different kinds of house-made sausages.” Think sausage flavors like maple brown sugar and chimichurri lamb.

Come take a seat and stay for lunch.

In addition, they offer eat-in or to-go lunches, such as warming ramen bowls and delicious lamb shoulder tacos. You can find other menu items like house-made chorizo sausage dressed with kimchi and garlic soy aioli. 

Jon cooks up some of his homegrown purple potatoes.

LaClair, doesn’t stop there. It seems the longer Hoof & Horn is open, the more options become available to diners. With an indulgent brunch menu on Sundays featuring a variety of benedicts (crab, veggie and beef tenderloin).  He says for brunch menus they are “trying to stay as hyper-local as we can and really celebrate the farms of the area.” Read more Hoof & Horn in Downtown Potsdam