Many family-owned farms find success by skipping the middleman and selling direct to consumer (DTC) — and the best, most effective way to build a customer base is online.
That’s where farm businesses can run into snags. If you sell meat, fish, or other catch-weight items, the most profitable way to sell them is by the pound. Unfortunately, many popular e-commerce solutions aren’t built for weight-based sales.
If you plan to get into DTC meat sales, using tools built for food sales is a must. In this article, we’ll do a deep dive into everything you need to know about selling by weight.
There are two main ways to sell your goods online:
Meat and fresh food naturally fluctuate in size, so it’s a no-brainer to sell them by weight. So, why do we see so many new farm businesses try to sell their products at a fixed price online?
In most cases, these businesses decide to sell by the unit because they’re trying to simplify their business model or because their e-commerce platform doesn’t support catch-weight sales. But selling these items by unit has two major drawbacks:
Long story short: If you plan to sell fresh food DTC, you need to sell by the pound.
Related Read: How To Ship Frozen Meat: 5 Considerations To Ensure You’re Ready
When starting a business, many farmers go straight to popular and inexpensive e-commerce options like Shopify. In most cases, though, these solutions are only more affordable because they’re built for basic retail.
There are workarounds, but we don’t recommend it. Ultimately, you’ll spend more effort on partial fixes instead of marketing your business.
Using a platform built for variable-weight sales, like GrazeCart, is the best way to start selling online since it’s designed to grow with your business.
To give you an idea of what the process looks like, here’s an overview of the weight-based sales in GrazeCart.
A detailed digital inventory list is the foundation of modern online sales. Most customers are intimidated by the traditional method of ordering a quarter or half cow (and specifying processing instructions). Selling standard cuts is the key to competing with grocery stores and other online meat sellers.
Start by building out all of your standard items in your inventory management system (i.e., not bundles or collections that include multiple items). For each item, you can enter details like:
At a minimum, you need to specify an item name, price per pound, and average weight to get started. But the more detailed you are in this initial setup phase, the more precise your inventory tracking will be and the better experience customers will have when browsing your website.
Once your base items are set up, you can start to create bundles. Bundles (or “collections”) are any product you sell that includes multiple items (e.g., a grilling variety box that includes ground beef, steaks, bacon, and herbs).
Bundles show up as a unique entry on your storefront (e.g., a sampler pack), but are made up of a collection of standard items in your inventory management system (e.g., a sampler is comprised of two units of ribeye steak, two pounds of ground beef, three units of fillet, and one chuck roast).
Tracking inventory this way ensures your stock levels are accurate and makes it easier to pack and fulfill these types of orders.
Selling by weight also complicates payment processing. A standard item has a fixed price and can be fully rung up before you fulfill the order. The final total on a weight-based sale won’t be available until you weigh the actuals and pack the order.
There are generally three ways that farm stores handle this:
Regardless of which payment model you use, it’s important to overcommunicate with customers on what to expect. Include messages in your product descriptions like “final price is calculated after all items are weighed.” You can also set up a dedicated ‘about’ page explaining how the process works.
The process might seem obvious to you, but it might not be to your customers. Taking the extra effort to ensure customers understand how final payment works helps build trust.
Once a customer puts in an order, and you’ve collected payment information, it’s time to finalize it.
GrazeCart includes an order overview screen that shows all open orders. You can use this to generate pick lists and create a to-do list. There’s no one right way to fulfill orders, but we recommend going through these steps:
Using integrated scales lets you weigh and price actuals and print a label on the product. Using a fully connected system also means you don’t have to calculate the price and write a message to the customer every time. Just mark the order as packed and let the system send the customer the notification.
When you’re starting out, you may not need to set up inventory shelves and packing groups for pick lists. But, even if you’re working with just a collection of chest freezers, it can be helpful to label each freezer and tie those labels to specific items.
Setting up a solid organizational system and fulfillment process early helps you scale it up smoothly.
Once you’ve updated the actuals and charged a customer, it’s time to send them their order. Depending on the size of your business, that means either setting up a local pickup or preparing for delivery.
If you’re doing local pickup, we highly recommend handling that aspect yourself. We see many farms that entrust their processors to fulfill orders — but by doing that, you put customer service in a third party’s hands. You’re missing a valuable chance for face time with your customers.
If you deliver, there are a few additional aspects to consider:
It’s also a good idea to set up a workflow for customer communication. Let customers know when their order shipped, along with any tracking information.
Last but not least, as you transition from local pickup to shipping, don’t forget to factor shipping and packaging costs into your prices. You might want to calculate costs and set a minimum order quantity (MOQ) to ensure you’re turning a profit.
Related Read: Perishable Food Delivery: 6 Low-Cost Vehicle Options
Selling by weight online isn’t necessarily harder than selling by the unit. It just takes the right tools and some time to set it up — but that investment pays off in the long run.
Selling by weight gives customers looking for high-quality, premium ingredients a chance to buy directly from farmers with the same user-friendly shopping experience they’d get anywhere else online.
GrazeCart was founded by farmers and specifically designed to give small businesses an intuitive and powerful way to sell by weight. Whether you’re just starting out in online sales or looking to scale up your business, our solution has you covered.
Find the right plan for your budget by checking out our flexible pricing tiers today.