Ready to start selling on Farm2Me? This step-by-step guide will take you through the process, from choosing a shop name to opening for business.
Whether you grow carrots or knit cozy hats, design snack bars for friends or make the best old-fashioned taffy at your local farmers market, Farm2Me is a great place for you to grow a small batch, sustainable food business – for retail and for wholesale. When you open a shop on Farm2Me, you join a thriving community of makers, farmers, fisherman and bakers. Opening your own shop might sound daunting, but you can get up and running in a few simple steps.
Read on for helpful tips and a checklist of the essential items you’ll need to open your shop so you can start strong.
How to Start a Farm2Me Shop
1. Name Your Shop
Choosing a shop name is the first step you’ll take in creating an identity for your business on Farm2Me. Your shop name will be displayed at the top of your shop — the page that shows everything you have for sale — and it will be part of the URL or web address of your unique Farm2Me shop. You can use punctuation or spaces in your Shop Name but it can’t be longer than 20 characters.
Every shop on Farm2Me has an original name. No two shop names are the same. If you’re struggling to come up with a name for your business that hasn’t been used already, try some of these ideas:
Add “farm,” “Inc,” “and Co” or something similar to the name you were hoping to use, if it is taken.
Pick something memorable that speaks to the vibe you hope to create for your shop. For example, Fig Lady speaks to the colorful person and brand of Fig Lady’s fig jams, which she sells from Merced, California.
Don’t worry about making your shop name perfect, but stick to the brand on your website and packaging. You can come back to this step and change your shop name as many times as you like before you complete the shop open process. After you’ve opened your shop, you can instantly change your name one time. If you need to change it again in the future, submit a request to Farm2Me Support.
2. Add Some Product Listings
If you’re opening a shop, you probably have an idea of what you plan to sell on Farm2Me. Once you’ve picked your shop name, the next step is to create a listing for each unique item you want to sell in your shop. There are many details you can add to a listing, but these are the essentials you’ll need for your first listings. The great thing is you can add pallet, wholesale, and retail prices – all in one listing. After you open your Farm2Me shop, we will add your details to each marketplace, respectively. It’s that simple to get started!
Photos
To create a listing, you’ll need photos of the handmade product, item or craft you want to sell. Product photos are something you can experiment with and improve upon as your shop grows. A basic listing should include five photos. When photographing your item, be sure to include:
A well lit, clear photo of the item you plan to sell
A white background, and white surface to rest the item
A photo that shows alternate angles of the product so shoppers can make an informed purchase
A photo showing any unique details of the product. Try to answer any questions a shopper might have about texture, color or the techniques used.
A photo that shows the scale of the item. Styling a photo with other recognizable props or by having volunteer models hold it in their hands can help. For example, you can style a jam on toast with a metal knife.
Use all five available photos and try to shoot your products using natural daylight instead of a flash.
Title
Next, you’ll give your listing a title. Think like a shopper and use words and phrases that buyers might use when searching for your item. Use different words and phrases to describe your product, including its ingredients or varietal (blueberry, zebra, Pinot noir), dietary restriction (zero waste, kosher, gluten free), uses (marinade, bridal bouquet), techniques (hand-harvested, homegrown, hand-made), etc.
When a brand starts their Farm2Me shop, they name each of their products after friends, for example “The Hannah Bagel,” and use that as their listing title. Over time they realize it was better to use descriptive keywords to help their listings appear in search. Now, they use titles like “Gluten Free – Everything Bagels in Nut Free, Tree Nut Free or Low Sodium, Hand Rolled, Local Flours, Wheat Free Facility” that are loaded with keywords.
About This Listing
Now you’ll answer some questions about what your product is and who made it. Farm2Me uses this information to label your items.
NEW! We’re working on a new certification form that will let you keep track of all of your certifications and high standards, all in one place.
Category
Choosing the right category will help shoppers find your item in search or when browsing category pages. Choose the category that best matches what your item is, for example, choose the Seasonal Produce category for your fruits & veggies, and Pantry Staples for your jams.
Based on which category you choose, you’ll be able to add more attributes to your items, such as subcategories. You’ll also be able to specify the item’s keywords and whether it’s related to a specific dietary restriction (such as Kosher – Cholov Yisroel) or whether it is made in a dietary restrictive facility (such as nut free). Farm2Me uses this information to help shoppers find relevant items when they search.
Price
Putting a price on an item you’ve made or collected can be nerve-racking. First and foremost, your price should account for the cost of the materials that went into making the item and your time. If you’re unsure, try searching for similar items on Farm2Me to see what the average price point is. For hyper small batch items, research going rates for the brand or time period. An important note: the currency you choose when starting your shop will be the currency your prices are listed in. Once your complete all four steps and open you shop, you can change your listing currency if necessary.
Description
Your listing description helps shoppers understand what you’re selling and what makes it special. Use short, descriptive sentences to describe what your product is and how it can fit into a buyer’s store, restaurant or home.
Start with a few sentences about the product, how shoppers might use it and what makes it unique.
Include some information about the techniques you used to make the item.
Give shoppers the specific details they need to know before making a purchase, such as dimensions and shipping timeline.
Variations
If your product is available in different SKUs (flavors), you can add each listing, separately.
Similary, If your product is available in different sizes: pallets, cases, kegs, or gallon containers, you can add each price separately in the same listing.
Shipping
It might seem difficult to estimate your shipping costs before ever taking the package to the post office. If you’re in the United States, you can use Etsy’s Price Your Postage Tool or USPS, FedEx or UPS, to get an estimate based on the size of the item.
You can either charge a flat fee, if you are personally delivering your orders to your wholesale accounts yourself. Or, you can leave shipping free. Or you can also let your customer pay for their postage right from their Check Out with Farm2Me’s Shipping Labels.
You can add multiple Originating ZipCodes if you have multiple ground zero’s around the country, and want to limit a radius of delivery outside of each center (e.g. Nashville and 50 miles, and Los Angeles and 60 miles).
Tags
Using descriptive tags helps shoppers find your item on Farm2Me and Google/Yahoo/Bing. Look at the keywords you used in your title and repeat them in your tags to strengthen the power of that search term. Think about all the ways a shopper might search for your item.
Phrases are better than single terms. For instance, use “lowfat grassfed yogurt” instead of “lowfat,” “grassfed” and “yogurt.”
Get creative about how your item could be used. Try occasion- or recipient-based tags such as “co-worker gift” or “wedding bouquet.” (Pro tip: If you’ve already added an occasion, ingredient, or other attribute to the category section of your listing, you don’t need to repeat that same information in your tags.)
Make sure to use a minimum of 13 tags per listing. The more tags you enter, the more likely you are to appear in a shopper’s search on Google/Yahoo/Bing and Farm2Me.
Add More Listings
Once you’ve created your first listing, keep going! Adding more listings increases the chances of shoppers finding your shop. You can always turn a listing OFF/ON, seasonally. And return to an old listing the following season, once it is in the system it will always be in the system OFF/ON. If you only have a few products to sell right now, consider creating separate listings for each SKU or flavor variation you can offer. A full page of listings gives shoppers more to browse and makes your shop look more professional.
3. Get Paid
The last section you’ll need to complete before you can open your shop is information about your bank. Farm2Me uses this information to set up Farm2Me Payments, Farm2Me’s payment processing system that allows you to accept PayPal, Farm2Me Gift Cards, major credit cards and more. Farm2Me also asks for your bank account information so you can receive periodic deposits of the money you’ve earned in your Farm2Me shops.
Depending on what country you are in, you might need to enter your credit card number to open your shop. Farm2Me keeps this card on file as a means of identity verification. You can use it to pay your Farm2Me bill — including the 6.5 percent of the price that Farm2Me takes when your product sells — or choose to pay your bill via PayPal.
4. Open Your Shop
Congrats! Now you’re ready to open your shop. Once your shop is open, shoppers will be able to find your listings when they search on Farm2Me. You can view your shop by going to your new web address: Farm2.me/collections/[your-shop-name] . (type your new shop name after the last forward slash). There’s more you can do to customize you shop after you open, but you’ve taken the first step in running a business on Farm2Me. Your Farm2me shop will continue to be a work in progress as you add more items and learn what works for your products.
Ready to open your Farm2Me shop? Get started today.
Success is a game of perseverance! We’re here to make sure that the local food industry continues to grow and that we all play a part.