We were invited to the Seeds & Chips conference in Milan to talk about the paradigm shift in farming…
Author: Fraser Bliss
Founder of Farmwell, speaker, lover of fresh local food.
Farmwell 2.0 is here…
After months of hard work we are proud to announce the public release of Farmwell 2.0.
It’s always been super important that new features are not only powerful, but are a joy to use as well.
Here’s a summary of what you can expect.
- Custom Branding: This was our #1 requested feature. You can now update the colours of your online store to match your website and replace Farmwell’s logo with your own.
- Custom Domains: Running your online store on your own domain name means you can send customers to your own web address. Eg. store.myfarm.com.
- Mobile-friendly: Your online store is now optimised for mobile devices to give your customers the best buying experience possible. (Full mobile optimisation for farmers and food hubs is coming in a few months).
- Silky Smooth Checkout: We did a lot of research on online consumer behaviour and have changed the shopping/checkout experience to help you maximise sales.
- Credit Cards. So many of you asked for this. We’ve made it super-duper easy for your customers to pay by credit card. That means less admin for you. Credit cards are still in beta, but will be available publicly very soon.
- Product Groups: Group products so that your customers can shop by Veggies, Fruit, Our Favourites… or however you want to present them.
- Search Engine Optimisation: Without you lifting a finger, we’ve made your online store super Google-friendly. That means more potential business for you.
A big thank you to our farmers and food hubs all over the world for your feedback and suggestions along the way.
If you’ve been thinking about giving Farmwell a go, there’s no better time to take advantage of our 14-day free trial.
The Best Farm Accounting Software – Tested and Reviewed
For 20 years, farmers have been using Quickbooks to keep their books in order.
Quickbooks wasn’t the best farm accounting software. It was the only option. Today, competition between vendors means farmers are spoiled for choice.
But how to decide which accounting software is best for your farm (or food hub)?
In this post, I will give you the fruits of my own research and explain the pros and cons of the top three accounting software options.
You’ll discover how to avoid the same costly mistake I made three years ago choosing accounting software and I’ll even name the one that we use at Farmwell today.
Continue reading The Best Farm Accounting Software – Tested and Reviewed
Have You Considered SPIN Farming?
We’ve talked about how to buy a farm debt-free, even without money, and how we should value our time if we’re going to be financially sustainable.
Did you know that’s what SPIN Farming is about?
When I first heard of it I falsely assumed it was something like square-foot gardening with a twist.
Nope. Not even close.
6 Simple Steps to Make Sure Your Farm Website Doesn’t Suck
Is your farm website helping you win customers? Or is it chasing them away?
Farm websites help customers see the effort and passion that goes into growing quality food. It educates and encourages new business.
But is your website working for your farm?
In this post, I’ll give you six ways to ensure your website showcases the quality food that you produce.
Ready to start winning new customers?
Continue reading 6 Simple Steps to Make Sure Your Farm Website Doesn’t Suck
What You Should Know Before Crowdfunding Your Farm Startup
Would you say no to $50,000 from Kickstarter to start your farm or food hub?
It’s free money, right?
If you’re thinking about crowdfunding the startup of your new farm, it may surprise you to learn that it’s not as easy (or cheap) as you might think.
Let’s find out what you absolutely must know before crowdfunding and why it’s probably a mistake to do it for the money.
Continue reading What You Should Know Before Crowdfunding Your Farm Startup
Don’t Kill Your Farm Business By Incorporating Too Early
Accountants and lawyers are probably screaming “don’t listen to this lunatic.”
There are plenty of good reasons to incorporate your farm business. One damn good one would be because you don’t want to buy land in your own name. We’ll talk about that another time.
If you want to start a food hub, an urban farm or you don’t have money to buy a land, do yourself a favour, don’t make the same mistake I did.
Here’s why you probably shouldn’t incorporate your farm business too soon.
Continue reading Don’t Kill Your Farm Business By Incorporating Too Early
5 Reasons Why You Should Start Your Farm Business Like a Fire
Starting a farm – or any business – is a lot like starting a fire.
For some the tiniest spark can start a roaring fire. Others need a ton of newspaper and big lungs – only to produce smoke.
Here’s how to ignite your farm business.
Continue reading 5 Reasons Why You Should Start Your Farm Business Like a Fire
New in Farmwell: Buy local food in small quantities
Farmers selling local food on generic e-commerce platforms are forced to pre-package and price their products in set quantities like “Strawberries – 500g”. For pastured meat farmers that means selling by average weight and annoying customers who end up with smaller cuts of beef, pork or poultry.
From Day 1 at Farmwell, we offered farmers and food hubs the chance to price their products in any quantities they want… kilograms, pounds, gallons, boxes, bags, etc.
Many of our customers have been asking us to take this a step further. Not every local food buyer wants a whole kilo of this or an entire litre of that.
Buying local online saves a lot of time, which means people can buy more frequently and in smaller quantities.
So we listened and spent time thinking how this could be done in the most simple way possible.
Typing decimals would be a pain. We didn’t want to lose those easy order buttons everybody loves either. Additionally, no farmer wants the hassle of getting orders for 23.085 lb.
After experimenting a lot with the design, we came up with a solution that people are finding pretty helpful:
Handy pre-filled order buttons with the option to choose partial quantities in amounts that makes sense. Small increments for small orders, bigger increments for bigger orders.
Lets look at strawberries at $18/kg.
If someone just want’s to buy a bit, there are smaller options:
If they want more, the units get bigger too:
It get really simple when big quantities are ordered:
And if a buyer starts off with a small amount and then adds more of it later (cause it’s just so yummy), Farmwell adds them together and rounds it off to the most appropriate amount.
After all, your local food e-commerce system should be doing this kind of heavy lifting – so you don’t have to.
Thank you to all of our dear customers who requested this feature!
What would you do if you only had a year left to live?
That’s the question that compelled me to quit the rat race and travel around the world for 5 years. The answer to that question is the reason why I started Farmwell.
I was interviewed by Diego Footer of Permaculture Voices to talk about pursuing your dreams and how to get started on your own personal journey. That could be quitting a meaningless job, starting a local food business, or selling your possessions to fund that dream trip.
This may be a subject you’re familiar with, but you probably haven’t heard this take on it before. It’s 7 years of lessons from life and business condensed in 1 hour.
What would you do if you only had one year left to live?