Everything you need to know to set up your store as a BC Association of Farmers' Markets member.
Create your own online marketplace for food buyers. You can sell to consumers, restaurants, retail, etc. Invite farmers to sell through your marketplace.
Invite the vendors you want and use our 'Discover' feature to connect with new vendors.
As an admin, you'll be able to control which farmers are in your market, how your market looks, and the rules to participate.
Create & launch your own online farmers' market! Customers can browse all your market's products in one convenient online store.
Give your market's vendors the ability to manage their products, orders, and logistics.
Connect with your vendors through Local Line and keep product listings always up to date.
Easily manage and communicate with your vendors and customers in one place.
Local Line's best in class support line will always be by your side. We're always a call or e-mail away from answering all your questions.
Be in control of your account and add unlimited users & roles, manage your subscription, and customize your notifications.
Easy-to-use drag and drop features allow you to quickly customize your market's website.
Offering your market's local food to customers online is a convenient—and crucial—way to get local food into the hands of your community during these.
Download >Watch how easy it is to connect with your vendors, and start selling to your customers.
Watch how simple it is for your customers to browse products in your market and checkout!
Local Line and the BC Association of Farmers' Markets have negotiated preferred pricing for members. See below for details.
Connect with us and we'll assist you every step of the way.
Have an introduction call with Local Line to receive & set the specific configuration* of your Market account.
Once your account is setup, you will spend 1 day setting up your Market Storefront. (ie. adding photos, business information etc.). Details can be found here.
Compile list of Vendor & Product List (vendor names, emails, product names, product prices etc.) and send to your Local Line rep. We will work with you and your vendors to input the correct information as efficiently as possible.
Once we both approve, we can share with your customer base & they can start ordering!
Use this guide to help your farmers' market promote your Local Line store and boost online sales.
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Times have changed. Getting markets connected and online is new for a lot of market managers and vendors. At Local Line, we want to help! We were very excited to get the chance to interview, Darren Stott, from Greenchain Consulting to get his best tips for selling and running your online store.
• Local Line is an e-commerce and order management platform for farmers and farmers markets. Markets use Local Line to enable their vendors to list products online and sell through the Farmers Market’s online store.
• In most cases, Local Line is used as a pre-order tool for farmers who sell at markets. In the case of COVID-19, it’s used as the way to accept orders and organize pickups with customers.
• There are two main configurations of the Local Line platform:
- The aggregation model allows all market vendors to upload their products into one large online store, and allow customers to place one order, make one payment, and have one pickup/delivery. In the aggregation model, the money from the customer can either be sent directly to the market, or can flow through to the vendor directly.
- The distributed vendor model allows each vendor to manage their own online store, their own payment terms, pickup times, deliveries, and more. In this model, the customer enters the store, and browser products by vendor, very similarly to how a farmers market works in real life. When the customer is ready to checkout, they checkout with each vendor, and pay that vendor directly.
- We recommend using the distributed vendor model if your market has more than 50 vendors, but we are happy to set you up on either configuration.
• Local Line is unique because our platform allows you to manage multiple vendors with multiple products, across a variety of pickup locations, payment methods, and ordering deadlines.
• Yes, Local Line comes with an online store that looks similar to other generic e-commerce programs, but it’s the behind the scenes vendor management that makes us uniquely suited to serve farmers markets.
While we certainly encourage all vendors to manage their own product listing, Market Managers do have the functionality to manage the listing on the vendors behalf. Generally, we see a direct correlation between those markets who’s vendors buy-in and manage their own listing and how successful they are. The Market Manager can’t do it all, so it’s important to get the vendors on board.
Generally, the Local Line Online Farmers Market product costs $20 per vendor per month, but with BCAFM, we have negotiated special preferred pricing, and are offering each market the entire platform for $100/month, irrespective of how many vendors your market has.
SPECIAL NOTE: Thanks to funding support from the BC Ministry of Agriculture, Vancity Credit Union, and by the BC Governments’ Buy BC Partnership Program, delivered by the Investment Agriculture Foundation of BC, BCAFM will be able to cover all Local Line fees for BCAFM member markets and their vendors to go online in the 2020 season.
For now, the cost is being covered by BCAFM. Once each market begins to pay for the system, they can either pay the $100/month themselves, or they can pass the cost to the vendors, and have the vendors pay the equivalent of $100/month. Local Line can structure it any way that works for you.
No, there are no setup costs.
Standard credit card processing fees apply at a rate of 2.75%. To process online payments, Local Line integrates with Square and Stripe. You can choose whichever system that you prefer.
Here are some markets who have had success using the Local Line market product:
• All Organic Farmers' Market
•Kelowna Farmers' and Crafters' Market
• Moss Street Market
• Esquimalt Farmers Market
• Revelstoke Local Food Initiative Farmers' Market
• The New Model of Local Food Distribution in Northern Ontario
•The Farmers Market goes High Tech
• How The Mustard Seed Co-Op is making Local Food more accessible with Local Line
• How Argus Farm Stop uses Local Line for their Retail Store, Food Hub, and Market
• Re-inventing the Local Food Economy with 10 markets in Minnesota
You can choose to embed your Local Line storefront on your existing market website, or you can have a separate stand alone store with a Local Line URL. If you need a website and don’t have one, you can build a free one at locallinesites.com.
You can either invite your vendors yourself through the market admin or you can ask your Local Line rep to pre-build your vendor accounts and send them the login credentials. Our recommendation for how to onboard your vendors depends on how many vendors you have, so check in with us and we will make sure to get your vendors onboarded in the easiest way possible.
After you’ve completely set up your store, you can launch it by clicking the Launch button on the left side of your home page/dashboard. This allows your customers to view your online market.
Yes! By creating separate catalogs, they can have a list of products available to their direct customers, then have another list of products available through the market. If a Market Manager wants a vendor to remove a product they can either ask the vendor, or they can contact Local Line to assist.
If at any time you need to temporarily close your store, you can!
1. Login to your Facebook admin site
2. Hover over the blue button [could read "Shop Now" "Send Message" "Call Now"]
3. Click the Edit button
4. Click Shop
5. Click Shop Now
6. Click Next
7. Click Website Link
8. Copy and paste your Local Line store URL
Make sure to announce your Shop Now button on Facebook and repost so followers know it's there. You should also include it in every post!
Use hashtags and geotags to reach others who are also searching for what you’re posting, in the geographic areas you’re tagging. Hashtags ensure that your content is seen by as many eyes as possible, not just your own audience. Here are some examples for inspiration:
• #[yourcity]food
• #[yourcity]fooddelivery
• #[yourcity]localfooddelivery
• #[yourcity]localfood
• #[yourcity]farmersmarket
Customers will visit your online market to shop for products. Once they add products to their cart and click “Checkout”, they will be prompted to input their information. After they add their name and contact information, they’ll be asked to pay for the order, and receive an email confirmation of their order. When orders are placed, markets and associated vendors are notified.
After signing up for an account with your market, customers able to make edits by clicking Edit Account. Here they can change their email, name, and password.
All order history can be found in their account under the Orders tab.
If at any time you need to temporarily close your store, you can!
1. Click Edit Account.
2. Turn the Close Store toggle to Off.
Your store will now say Closed when customers go to shop. Be sure to reopen your store when you start selling again.
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info@localline.ca
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