"Around mid-March, our employees came to us and said we can't do this anymore. So we immediately shut down the public part of our market," said Patrick Crowl, owner of the Woodstock Farmers’ Market, a specialty retail store located in Woodstock, Vermont, during the latest installment of SFA’s Working with Buyers webinar series. Crowl and Amelia Rappaport, lead buyer for the market, shared how the retailer pivoted to a curbside pickup-only model to protect the health of its employees and how its relationships with customers, distributors, and suppliers have helped it succeed during this challenging time.
Pivoting the Business
After Woodstock Farmers’ Market decided to close the public part of its market, the retailer needed to come up with another way to keep selling its products. "We came up with a curbside pickup program in three days. It was crazy at first,” said Crowl. The first iteration of this program revolved around a call center staffed by two to three employees who took customer orders. This process was very labor intensive, according to Rappaport. “We’d be writing credit card numbers down by hand, processing them, and then ripping them up,” she said. To simplify the process, Woodstock Farmers’ Market worked with long-time partner ECRS, a point-of-sale software company, to develop a web cart on the store website, which allows customers to do all of their transactions online.
Prioritizing Communication
In early April, a Woodstock Farmers’ Market employee tested positive for COVID-19. When trying to decide what to do, Crowl said, “We went back to our ethics. We had to do the right thing.” The store was closed for 10 days and a variety of messaging went out to customers. “We were honest; we felt we owed it to our community.” Though some customers were scared by this, the decision ultimately helped to strengthen the trust between the community and the retailer.
Taking Stock
Since the retailer has had to reduce the number of products it carries, it’s been a good time for the store to evaluate which suppliers it values and wants to continue a relationship with. “We want to support the people we’ve had the best relationships with,” said Rappaport. “And in turn, they support us.” Woodstock Farmers’ Market has also found that distributors who are transparent and flexible are becoming more and more valuable to the store.
from Specialty Food News https://ift.tt/2AdDoYN
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