If you would of told me that I would be managing a farmers market a year ago I would of thought you were crazy. The opportunity arose quite suddenly to be the manager of our local farmers market. I am no expert on how to run a farmers market, but the following are important concepts to consider when you are thinking of starting a farmers market for your community or taking over one as a manager.Before you even begin to formulate your location, vendors, layout, marketing strategies you need to have a board of directors. This board will be the governing entity of your market. You will need people who are experienced in urban planning, business, the agricultural scene, and active with your community. It is also a good idea to talk to other farmers markets; how did they start their market? What advice do they have? Would they be willing to help you? Once you have your board members selected, you need to come up with a mission for your market. What do you stand for? What do you want your community to gain by your presence?You can’t have a farmers market without vendors. The type of vendor for your market really depends on your location. Here in Asheville, artisan vendors don’t do great. Produce vendors those are the vendors you want. You need to make sure that they are not all selling the same crops. Variety is key. At our market we have five produce vendors. They all have different items for sale. With the new craze of food trucks, it would be a great idea to recruit one or many for your market. My market is a smaller farmers market and I found that it’s best to try to reach out to food trucks that are just starting out. The ones that have been around for a longer period of time may consider your market – if it’s on the small scale or just starting up – a waste of their time because they may not make what they would consider to be a good profit for their time.Marketing is a deal. Based off data the best way to market is using social media; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,etc. These are valuable assets to any business. You can also use Google Business to let people know about your market. Social media posts are free, which is great when you are just starting out. Once you get your market sustainable cash flow, you can look into boosting posts on Facebook and Twitter. Both Facebook and Twitter offer you to set your advertising budget which allows for less stress; once your budget has been spent the advertising stops until you reset it. Another great idea is to partner up with local businesses that are willing to promote your market using their social media. From my experience going and talking to local restaurants, breweries, kitchen supply stores that do food demos are all great prospects.Location! Location! Location! This is very important to farmers markets. Last year my market was behind a church in their parking lot. There was no road visibility. We lacked new customers due to no visibility. During the off season we worked diligently to find a new location that was more visible, had walk ability, as well as good parking. We are now partnering with a local business to use their parking lot which has road visibility, parking as well as walk ability for our neighborhood. This move was a win-win for everyone involved. Our customers are now their customers, and their customers are now our customers.If you want to start your own farmers market here are some resources to consider reviewing before starting the process. There is a course you can take through the Farmers Market Federation of NY, Cornell University Cooperative Extension of Broome County and SUNY Cobleskill and funded by NYS’s Fresh Connect Program. This program costs $200, after taking the certification course you will be a certified Farmers Market Manager. It is an online course. I plan on taking it in the near future. Another great resource is ASAP. They have a section dedicated to how to become a farmers market manager with Powerpoint slides, PDF’s on farmers market rules and regulations. The best part is that this is a free resource.Resources:http://www.nyfarmersmarket.com/fmm-pro-suny-farmers-market-managers-certification-programhttp://www.asapconnections.org
Becoming a Wholesale Clothing Dealer Online With SaleHoo
If you are business minded and have a passion for fashionable clothing, you can have a successful business venture selling clothes online. With the internet, this is no longer difficult to do. You can easily find wholesale clothing suppliers without having to leave your own home. This is made possible with SaleHoo’s wholesale directory.Before the internet became readily available, doing business took up a lot of resources especially when looking for a supplier. You might have to travel in order to personally find a supplier or make endless phone calls before you could come to an agreement with the wholesaler. These days the internet is making it easy to do business online. This is especially true because of the availability of wholesale directories like SaleHoo.A wholesale directory makes it possible to find wholesale clothing suppliers easily. You can choose the kind of clothes you want to sell including women’s clothing, men’s wear, children’s clothes, jeans, tops, etc. You can find the best suppliers of fashionable, quality clothing at wholesale prices. There are thousands of suppliers on the wholesale directory, making it easy to find a wholesale clothing supplier who can give you the best deals.SaleHoo is an ecommerce company that specializes in global trading. This means that you can find suppliers from all over the world using their wholesale directory. Wholesale clothes from Asian countries are very cheap but trendy and of high quality. Obtaining the clothes that you will sell from Asian suppliers will give you a high profit margin while keeping your selling price competitive.You can also obtain low-priced clothes from liquidators that you find on SaleHoo. Liquidators provide clothing items that are priced way below wholesale price. You can sell the clothes that you obtain from liquidators online at discounted prices and still make a good profit.In case you do not have a lot of money to invest, you may decide to make use of wholesale clothing dropshippers that you can also find on SaleHoo. Dropshippers make it possible for you to sell wholesale clothes online without having to buy stocks beforehand. By using SaleHoo, you can establish a profitable online business selling wholesale clothes.