How to Have the Top-Selling Booth at a Farmers Market

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By Gail Martin
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Backing their trucks into a long line of spaces, a group of industrious gardeners open their tailgates, spread out their excess bounty from their backyard gardens, and turn an empty parking lot into a bustling farmers market. Attract more buyers to your booth with the tips below.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

signs and labels for the produce
display props (stands, baskets, etc.)
colorful table cover

Step 1

For ten years, we sold produce at farmers markets in eastern and central Kansas. Be there early enough to have everything set up when the buyers arrive. Some buyers arrive early and will go to the first booth that is ready.
Step 2

Laid out on folding tables are herbs fresh-cut or dried; blackberries sold by the pint, in jam or as pie, squash in the summer tones of yellow and green, and homemade bread in whole wheat, honey oatmeal. garlic, raisin, sugarless raisin, dill or cinnamon. There are plump, red tomatoes, crisp peppers, and sweet corn-on-the-cob.
Arrange your merchandise on the tables with an eye for color. Put taller things at the back and shorter things in front. Think like a merchandiser setting up a department store window. We made stair step display stands to show off my homemade jams.
Step 3

Have a variety of produce to appeal to a wide range of tastes. In addition to the usual agricultural fare, such as potatoes, tomatoes, green beans and lettuce, our prolific gardens produced Swiss chard, mustard greens and Kuta squash.
Step 4

Provide customers with samples to taste. I provided recipes for some of the vegetables such as Swiss chard and Kuta squash. A lot of people don’t know what Swiss chard is or how to cook it straight from the garden. We put out samples of Kuta squash for people to try and that helps sell it. We only take produce to see that we would want to buy if we were the customers. We don’t sell anything that doesn’t look first rate. We’ll eat that ourselves.
Step 5

As the family bread baker, my husband sold a variety of his loaves at the farmers market. With a bread purchase, customers received one of his brochures, “Clyde’s Great Bread,” which I printed from my home computer. The brochures include tips on how to store homemade bread, serving ideas and recipes for spreads.
Step 6

We clearly marked all the produce with price labels I made on my computer. It is a lot more work to price everything like that, but it is worth it. How we like to buy things is how we sell things. Put yourself in the buyer's shoes. Some people won't bother to ask for prices, they'll just go to the next booth.
Step 7

Make your booth stand out with some decorations. In the fall, attach shocks of corn to each corner and pile pumpkins at their base. You can sell these as well.
Step 8

Talk to people as they browse. Tell them about the vegetables, the jam, the bread or other items for sale. Engage them in conversation by commenting on their tote bag, hat, or the weather. The longer they stand at the booth, the more likely they are to buy something.
Step 9

Tailor your items for sale to the tastes of the customers. If someone said, "we can't buy regular bread as we're diabetic," then Clyde developed a sugar-free bread just for that market. Those customers returned again and again just for that bread.

Comments

LilacGirl said

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on 9/14/2008 What a terrific, helpful, and timely article. So many people want to start a business and your ideas for selling more things, and displaying your items, were excellent.