As a store buyer, working with local producers might be a new approach. That’s great!
More local products means happier customers. Buying from local producers isn’t necessarily the same as buying from a distributor or warehouse. Here are five things to know in your journey of working with local producers.
- It’s all about the relationship.
For some smaller farms, the salesperson may be the farmer. Which means it’s one of a dozen hats they wear every day. Help your local producer understand your key priority, whether it’s accuracy of items ordered, or quality, or delivery time, or working with receiving. Clear expectations go a long way. Because of their size, smaller farms may have larger hiccups, especially with labor or weather. Some familiarity with the timing of severe weather will help you stay better attuned to problems that might affect their deliveries to you.
It’s all about the relationship.
A strong feedback loop will help your local grower, and your relationship with them, immensely. Pass along comments from store customers, especially good ones. Offer suggestions on how their products might present or sell better in your store. With a solid relationship, you’ll discover some local producers can be flexible with delivery times or meet last-minute or same-day requests. Offer them data points they can use. The standouts will take feedback to heart and apply them.
This is an example of a WordPress post, you could edit this to put information about yourself so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many posts as you like in order to share with them what is on your mind. This is an example of a WordPress post, you could edit this to put information about yourself so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many posts as you like in order to share with them what is on your mind.