There are many reasons for this, including inaccurate orders and delivery delays. Let’s discuss how you can squash food waste and increase your margins—all with tools included with Delivery Biz Pro’s eCommerce subscription delivery platform.    

Real-Time Inventory Management

The stock of one of your products can change quickly and frequently, depending on the season, weather, economic conditions, a promotion and more. Trying to manage all of these variables is next to impossible without a robust software solution to help you see what’s going on. 

Delivery Biz Pro can help you track inventory in real-time, so you aren’t caught off guard if an unexpected boost in sales depletes your stock. It can also be used to create purchase orders, or you can give your suppliers the power to manage their own inventory and create purchase orders — taking one more task off of your plate. 

Ultimate Order Accuracy

If a customer makes an order but it’s not fulfilled properly or if there’s a communication breakdown somewhere between the customer and the supplier, it can lead to an inaccurate order and wasted food. Failing to send written confirmation of the order placed, not notifying customers of the estimated time of delivery, and not confirming order address are all things that can contribute to failed deliveries. Here’s how to keep customers updated, accurately: 

Order Change Alerts

Consumers who are ordering their food online want to be able to experience the same kind of flexibility they have when ordering in person. Therefore, you need to be prepared and ready to make last-minute changes. Even if your kitchen can make the requested modification, don’t forget to alert your driver. With our convenient mobile app, you can send driver text messages, modify delivery routes, and even schedule a new pickup location with the click of a button. 

Automatic Order Confirmations

Communicate with your customers automatically during the entire order process and send them an estimated time of arrival. Sometimes customers make mistakes when placing a food order, but now both you and your customer will be on the same page when you use our software to send instant notices of order confirmation. 

Delivery Reminder Emails

Go one step beyond just sending an order confirmation and send delivery reminders to individual customers. This will reconfirm the items they will be receiving and the time or day they can expect their delivery to arrive. When it comes to successful deliveries, communication is key and Delivery Biz Pro has multiple tools to help you do just that. 

Product Management

Sometimes you can deliver the requested items but the way in which the products are received can result in a poor customer experience. For instance, packing hot and cold items together can make for an unpleasant meal. With Delivery Biz Pro, our software allows you to designate certain items to be packed separately from others so salads stay crisp and soups stay hot. 

Improve Delivery Times

When you’re in the business of delivering perishable products, time is of the essence. Whether you’re trying to get chilled meal kits or hot dinners to their destination quickly, improving delivery times is a common KPI for many delivery businesses. One of the easiest ways to do this is to focus on route optimization and enhance communication with your drivers. 

Delivery Biz Pro gives you a simple, organized way to show what needs to be dropped off, to whom, and at what location. Drivers are given the most efficient route for their deliveries including maps with turn by turn directions. Need to override the system to make a priority delivery? No problem — simply use the manual feature to rearrange stops. 

Improve Margin and Grow Your Business With Delivery Biz Pro

Food waste can eat away at a restaurant’s profit margin, and for those in the business of food delivery, it’s no different. Don’t let inaccurate orders, late deliveries, and miscommunication contribute to food waste and a negative margin — enlist the help of customer-focused eCommerce delivery software. Delivery Biz Pro accomplishes all of this, plus so much more. Give us a call or fill out our online form to request your free demo today. 

Photo by Maarten van den Heuvel from Pexels

The post Three Ways Delivery Businesses Can Reduce the Cost of Food Waste appeared first on Delivery Biz Pro - The Premier Home Delivery Software for Your Business Needs.

Having an eCommerce store is the first step for most companies, but relying on a website alone and is not enough. If you’re ready to take your business to new heights, every delivery business should be taking full advantage of the opportunities provided by an eCommerce store by connecting it to customizable delivery management software like that from Delivery Biz Pro. Keep reading to learn more.

Increase Repeat Orders

One big advantage of having an eCommerce store is being able to track what your customers buy. This not only helps with inventory management, but also powers your marketing to current customers. Take order tracking a step further by analyzing customer buying habits and then offering suggestions based on those habits. For instance, when you connect Delivery Biz Pro to your eCommerce site, you can determine what products your customers buy and when they buy them and then use that information to send an alert reminding them that it’s time to buy.

A Store Set Up For Subscriptions 

We have been building eCommerce websites specifically for delivery businesses since 2007. As you may know, recurring home delivery businesses won’t work well with just any website store builder. If you went that route, with a generic website store builder, you’d have to integrate it with other new software and stitch these solutions together. In contrast, we provide you with one integrated, out-of-the-box solution for subscription delivery, eliminating any work or cost of patching separate solutions together, and informed by 13 years of experience creating customized subscription delivery eCommerce stores. 

Track Sales, Returns, and Deposits In Real-Time

With only a standalone eCommerce store, you may be able get detailed information related to sales and returns, but it takes time to process. A return can take days to show up in the system and this lag time can create big problems when you’re trying to manage inventory. But with a store synced with delivery software, your sales, returns, and bottle deposits are updated in real-time as your drivers make changes on the road. Our software can be accessed through a mobile app that allows your delivery drivers to manage transactions with the click of a button. Now if a driver has to correct an invoice, the change will be reflected online, immediately. 

 How To Make It Happen

We understand that setting up and running an online store is a big step for many small businesses, but it’s the only way to reach a bigger audience. If you really want your business to reach its full potential, pair it with the delivery software from Delivery Biz Pro. Getting started is easy. We’ll provide the support you need to integrate it with your current business processes and payments system so you can be up and running in no time. You’ll be able to create sales reports, inventory reports, and customer-specific reports that give you the data you need to analyze your business and make informed decisions.  

If you’re looking for tools that can help you grow your subscription delivery business, contact a member of our team. 

The post Why Your Subscription Delivery Business Needs Integrated Delivery Software appeared first on Delivery Biz Pro - The Premier Home Delivery Software for Your Business Needs.

Since 1998, Delivery Biz Pro has provided food delivery companies like yours with an eCommerce marketplace integrated with delivery software — optimizing deliveries by analyzing and improving upon current delivery data. Our delivery management software is specially designed to help your business manage inventories, track sales, and eliminate any inefficiencies that your business might be experiencing. According to Upserve Restaurant Insider, 33% of American consumers saying that they would be willing to pay a higher fee for faster delivery services, it is more important now than ever to optimize your delivery services and business infrastructure. 

The Challenge: Moving Consumers to Buy Produce Online

Food delivery is a valuable service that makes life easier, however, consumers have yet to completely make the switch from visiting the grocery store to visiting an online delivery marketplace. Approximately 96% of U.S. consumers still primarily shop for their groceries in the store — even though they can have those same groceries delivered to their doorstep using an online delivery service. 

One reason for the hesitancy to switch to online delivery is the challenge for some companies to be able to live up to consumers’ expectations. For instance, consumers assume that their order will be delivered quickly and accurately and don’t want to have their choices limited just because they are ordering online. They also expect to receive personalized communication throughout their buying experience — something that can be difficult to do, especially as a business starts to experience significant growth.

At Delivery Biz Pro, we have developed a delivery management system that can allow your business to get the competitive edge it needs to entice consumers to buy their produce online instead of going to a brick-and-mortar store. Learn more about our innovative delivery management and tracking software today. 

The Solution: Online Store That Optimizes For Each Customer’s Needs — eCommerce Specifically Built For Delivery

Delivery Biz Pro, our eCommerce delivery marketplace and software, is the tool that your business needs to efficiently track, sell, and deliver products. Check out this article to learn how one organic food delivery service, Washington Green Grocer, benefited from our software.

For businesses like WGG, one of the biggest challenges can be retaining customers and increasing order sizes. With Delivery Biz Pro, you can migrate all your past customer data into the system and get a customized online store that makes signup, ordering, and repeat ordering, so much easier. It also offers inventory management and route optimization so orders get out faster. Plus, you can increase customer retention with DBP’s automated email marketing, which uses order data to send just the right promotional email to the right customer at the right time. 

Working With Delivery Biz Pro

Do you currently have a produce delivery business? Contact us today to speak with our team about the power of all-in-one eCommerce and Delivery software. 

The post eCommerce Tools To Help Deliver & Track Your Produce appeared first on Delivery Biz Pro - The Premier Home Delivery Software for Your Business Needs.

Below, we’d like to share a little analogy about how growing your CSA or produce delivery business with the help of our software is just like growing the plants themselves. Read on, and be sure to schedule your free demo to see if our software is right for your business model. 

How to Grow a Produce Delivery Business

Use Rich Soil

The soil is the environment that your plant grows in. It needs to be full of nutrients to feed your plant. In the same way, your business needs a strong foundation before it can begin to grow. This can include your business model and how you plan to make money; your staff and team members who handle customer concerns and pack up boxes; and even the local market competition. If your business is in a toxic environment, it is likely to die before it even begins to sprout. 

Plant Seeds

Next, you need to plant the seeds in the soil. This will be the vessel that delivers your business to the customers. In our analogy, this is your website. A website is more than just a URL, just as a plant is more than just a seed. This will be the base of all of your business, and two decades into the 21st century, you can’t expect your business to grow without a good, user-friendly website. 

Give it Water

Now you must water your plant! Water is the lifeblood of a plant. Too little and it will dry up. Too much, and it will drown. Water is like your customers. You need enough customers to fund your business, but get too many without a plan for scalability and you’ll find yourself unable to fulfill their needs! Our produce delivery software helps you scale up your business by ensuring the logistical tasks don’t get lost in the weeds. 

And Plenty of Sun

Sun provides energy for your plants. It helps them turn all of the above into resources that it can use to grow. In this case, our produce delivery software is like sunlight hitting your plant! It opens up your petals so you can fully bloom and ensures you are able to turn that soil, seed, and water into something deliverable to your customers. 

Time to Harvest!

Now, it’s time to sit back and rejoice in what you have grown! Your fully grown plants are the fruits of your labor — sometimes literally! Metaphorically, though, harvesting time is watching your business thrive with larger delivery areas and long-term customers. 

Grow Your Business With Our Produce Delivery Software

Whether you run a CSA or deliver meal kits, our produce software can help ensure nothing slips through the cracks. Request a demo of our produce and CSA software today. 

The post How To Grow A Produce Delivery Business appeared first on Delivery Biz Pro - The Premier Home Delivery Software for Your Business Needs.

Fresh Produce Software That Grows With You

Today, we’re going to take some time to tell you about Ooooby (that’s right — four O’s). Ooooby is a New Zealand-based digital farmer’s market. The name Ooooby is an acronym that means “Out of our own back yards.” 

Ooooby’s goal is to put “small-scale sustainable farming at the heart of our food system.” They do this by fostering a network of local, organic growers who produce a variety of fruits and vegetables. Ooooby receives produce directly from their suppliers and hand-pack it to be shipped directly to customers. 

Since its humble beginnings in 2010 — working out of a converted shipping container and delivering produce to just 50 customers — Ooooby has grown exponentially. They now operate in Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Taranaki, and Christchurch, New Zealand; Sydney, Australia; and Fresno, California, and have plans to expand in the near future. They have now delivered over 345,000 boxes of fresh, local produce to over 17,000 homes. Ooooby uses the Delivery Biz Pro produce delivery software to get their food where it needs to be. 

The Right Software For The Right Business

At Delivery Biz Pro, we know how important it is to pick the right software for your business model. Our produce management software optimizes your business at every stage from a beautiful new website where your customers can load their carts with their favorite items to automated delivery routing so your drivers are empowered to make changes on the road if needed. 

Pete Russell, the CEO of Ooooby, says of Delivery Biz Pro, “We’ve been deeply impressed by the fantastic improvements DBP has brought to our customer experience as well as the operational efficiencies the software brings. Our customers have been raving about the new shopping interface and we saw an instant increase in average transaction values by over 10%. The DBP team has been an absolute delight to work with and we’re very excited about applying more of the powerful features that DBP offers!”

While Ooooby grew their business through a dream and hard work, our produce management software has been an important tool and we are excited to continue our relationship with Ooooby. They have plans to scale their business using the unique features that DBP can offer.

Grow Your Business With Our Produce Delivery Software

Delivery Biz Pro specializes in providing business owners with highly customizable, intuitive delivery management software for a wealth of industries. Whether you are looking for produce delivery software for your growing digital farmers market or simply need a simple CSA software to help run your program, we can help. 

Get in touch today to discuss how our produce software can help your farm or produce delivery business thrive. 

Click here to read more about Ooooby’s journey with Delivery Biz Pro. 

The post Case Study: Ooooby Grows Their Digital Farmer’s Market With Our Produce appeared first on Delivery Biz Pro - The Premier Home Delivery Software for Your Business Needs.

Delivery Biz Pro understands the struggles that small and medium-sized businesses face on their journey to success. We do our best to help those businesses succeed in any way we can. As a SaaS (software as a service) provider, we are dedicated to creating the best delivery management software on the market. We do this by housing an amazing team of developers and designers that think with both their hearts and their heads, giving our clients a fully supportive team. 

Today, we’d like to share another success story with you! This time, we’re going to be talking about Farm to People, a digital farmer’s market operating out of Brooklyn, New York.

Locally Grown, Thoughtfully Delivered

Farm to People specializes in local, organic foods ranging from fresh fruits and veggies to meat, seafood, eggs, and dairy. They currently deliver fresh produce in the highly competitive market of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. In an area where people need convenience to get through their busy days, how does Farm to People beat out the competition? 

It comes down to their commitment to excellence and our customizable produce delivery software. Their fruits and veggies come from farms that are family-run, non-GMO, and dedicated to sustaining the environment. Their meat, dairy, and eggs come from animals that are treated humanely, never caged, free-range, antibiotic-free, and growth hormone-free. Their seafood is sustainably sourced and come from fishermen and women who are dedicated to improving fishing practices and increasing positive change for threatened species. In short, their products are top-tier and their customers never have to guess about the sustainability or safety of their products. They just know that the boxes of fresh food they receive are good for them and good for the environment. 

Farm to People actually goes even further than just offering fresh food to their customers. Their website also includes a large and easily navigable recipe database that shows customers how to use their produce to make healthy and delicious meals. 

With all of that amazing food, how do they get it to the dense population of major New York City boroughs? That’s where we come in. 

Delivery Biz Pro’s customizable produce management software helps CSAs and digital farmer’s markets have a seamless experience from the supplier to the delivery driver to the customer, and every role in between.

Michael Robinox, Co-Founder of Farm to People, says of Delivery Biz Pro, “We are now able to offer 200 different handmade foods and expect that number to grow to 400 by June. Without the ability to customize, forecast and manage inventory on DBP, we couldn’t do it… We love that our customers are kept in the loop and know the minute their packages have been delivered. That kind of detail helps us build a trust that’s very difficult to earn.”

Our produce delivery software doesn’t just generate routes for you from a list of addresses. It gives you the opportunity to give your customers the absolute best service from the second they enter your website. With a user-friendly website, safe payment options, automated customer alerts, and so many more amazing features, you and your customers have what you need for a positive and successful interaction. 

Let’s Grow Together With Our Produce Delivery Software

As we said at the beginning of this blog, if you had no limitations, what would you do? Where would you go?

Delivery Biz Pro is here to help you discover the answers to those questions. With our intuitive software that essentially runs the backend of your business for you, you can continue to grow and expand without dealing with common pain points such as inefficient routes or wrong orders. 

Get in touch today to get started and see how we can help your business grow!

Click here to read more about Farm to People’s journey with Delivery Biz Pro.

The post Case Study: Farm To People Grows With DBP appeared first on Delivery Biz Pro - The Premier Home Delivery Software for Your Business Needs.

By providing a service that utilizes small farmers in the area, residents can support local agriculture and those farmers don’t have to spend their resources hunting down customers. It’s a win-win-win for Skarsgard, their members, and the producers. 

More Profit, More Local Farmers, Less Work

The owner of Skarsgard Farms, Monte Skarsgard, says, “We use Delivery Biz Pro across the entire state of New Mexico to deliver 275 SKUs from micro-producers, ranging from strawberries to eggs to steak…Most of these producers are far too small to get shelf space at Whole Foods or a traditional grocer.”

On the benefits of using our CSA management software for their service, Skarsgard Farms mentions that DBP does the work of “four or five” administrative assistants while eliminating human error from the process. 

Bigger Than Just A Routing Software

DBP doesn’t simply serve as their delivery routing software, though. They also utilize DBP’s data collection capabilities to target specific customers. Because placing an order requires an email address, anyone who has ordered tomatoes, for example, will be placed into a category where they can later be retargeted with an email announcing a fresh harvest of heirloom tomatoes. 

These types of functions from our CSA software have allowed businesses like Skarsgard Farms to optimize their marketing, reach and keep more customers, and support other small businesses along the way. 

Skarsgard Farms has also found that they benefit from the automated routing features of their CSA software. The delivery routing software in our product can identify the most profitable routes so that the farm can determine where to focus their marketing efforts. 

Playing To The Market

As we mentioned above, Skarsgard Farms operates out of New Mexico, a state that is not known for producing a plethora and variety of produce year-round due to its desert climate. This provides a market area in which residents want fresh, colorful, local, and organic fruits and veggies. 

The Skarsgard Farms website addresses this, saying, “We recognize that New Mexico is not an ideal point on the map to produce food year-round, so we partner with growers in neighboring states in addition to New Mexico to fill the void in diversity and availability of produce here in the Land of Enchantment. This turns our community into a regional community, inclusive of New Mexico, Arizona, California, Colorado, and Mexico so that our members can receive amazing, Certified Organic produce all year long instead of being limited by the seasonality of our local area.”

Grow Your CSA With Delivery Biz Pro

Skarsgard Farms is a unique business that provides a CSA-type service that combines the produce and products of farms across multiple states. Whether you’re a multi-state service like Skarsgard or you run a small CSA farm, our software can help you grow your business.

Our CSA software allows you to focus on providing your members with high-quality, diverse products without having to worry about logistics. From intuitive route planning to an integrated website, payment, and ordering system, you can take your CSA further without having to employ a handful of assistants and an IT team. We handle that for you, so you can help your community thrive with fresh, local food. 

To learn more about how Delivery Biz Pro can help your business thrive, get in touch with our team. We’d be happy to hop on the phone and see if our product is right for your business model. 

To learn more about Skarsgard Farms’ journey with Delivery Biz Pro, check out this article.

The post Case Study: Skarsgard Farms Grows With Our CSA Software appeared first on Delivery Biz Pro - The Premier Home Delivery Software for Your Business Needs.

Below, you’ll find five ways to make your CSA stand out from the competition — and we don’t just mean other CSAs in the area. Grocery stores and meal delivery programs are all offering something similar: produce and convenience. You simply need to prove to your shareholders that your produce is fresher, better, and more convenient than what the “other guys” are offering. Keep reading to learn a few ways to get ahead of the competition!

Make Your CSA Stand Out

1. Offer Home Delivery Of Fresh Produce: As a CSA farmer, you have a lot of competition whether there are other CSAs in your region or not. Home delivery of fresh produce looks to be the way of the future, with everyone from local and national grocery chains to Walmart and Amazon offering grocery deliveries. On top of that, you also have companies like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh delivering full meal kits. It is worth adding the convenience of home delivery to your CSA, as potential customers might be on the fence if they will need to travel to your farm to get their produce. Advertising your home delivery capabilities might just be what it takes to convince them to use your service. After all, produce they get from a CSA is going to be fresher and closer to home than anything they can get from Amazon or Blue Apron! And if this sounds complicated, don’t worry. There is software for local farmers that make the ordering, routing, and delivery process seamless.
2. Create An Online Community: Consider starting a Facebook group or other online forum where members of your CSA can interact with each other, share recipes, and discuss other topics related to your farm. This is also a great place for you to share updates about the farm and get your shareholders more involved. Share pictures of upcoming yields to get customers excited about their next delivery or let them know the best way to store this week’s items to keep them fresh. You can even offer opportunities for shareholders to come help out on the farm in exchange for discounts on their membership, or encourage them to invite their friends to the group so you can expand your reach to more potential customers.
3. Get Certified: The more certifications you have as a local farmer, the more credibility you’ll have with your customers. If you grow organically or have free-range chickens, start the process of certification for it. You can also be certified in humanely raised meat products, grass-fed beef, non-GMO, and lots of other things that shareholders like to see! Sometimes the certification process can take a long time, but the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll be able to tell your shareholders you are an organic farmer, you’re just waiting on the paperwork.
4. Offer Unique Produce… But Don’t Get Too Crazy: You want to offer your subscribers something special that other CSAs do not. However, you don’t want to get too crazy with how much unique produce you offer because your customers don’t want to have to Google every new vegetable they unbox as they are trying to cook dinner for their families. If you do offer some unique produce, be sure to include a recipe card on how to prepare and cook it. While most people will know exactly what to do with a crown of broccoli or some fresh carrots, they might be less sure how to prepare eggplant, jicama, and okra. Finding the perfect balance between variety, usability, familiarity, and uniqueness is key.
5. Get Feedback From Your Shareholders: Perhaps one of the best things you can do for your CSA is continue to adapt and change it to meet the desires of your shareholders. For example, doing this can relate directly back to number four by allowing your customers a place to say, “Hey, there’s way too many radishes in here and we never eat them!” Or, you might find that they love how much variety you have and that you’re the best CSA farmer they’ve ever worked with. If you never seek feedback, you’ll never know how they feel. One way to do this is by emailing surveys to your customers. Doing this at least twice throughout the season is a great place to start. Send out a survey in the middle of the season and ask your customers about their overall satisfaction and what they would like to see change. If you find out that a majority of your customers are unhappy about a certain aspect of your CSA, you’ll have time to make changes before the end of the season and hopefully encourage them to renew their membership. Using a software for small farmers will make it easier to keep up communication.

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Let’s Deliver The Groceries, Together!

We know that transitioning from a traditional pick-up-at-the-farm CSA to a CSA that offers delivery services is a huge step. There are a lot of factors that go into it, but we want to make it easy for you. Our comprehensive software has been specifically designed to meet the needs of local farmers who offer delivery services of their fresh produce. With features ranging from inventory management to mass customer communication to routing your entire customer base with the press of a button, we make it easy to handle orders and get them delivered to the right people at the right time.

Get in touch with Delivery Biz Pro today to learn more about using our produce delivery software for your CSA farm! We’ll set up a time to chat and see if we’re the right choice for your business.

The post 5 Ways To Make Your CSA Stand Out appeared first on Delivery Biz Pro - The Premier Home Delivery Software for Your Business Needs.

Obviously, a lot has to happen between the two of those events, and it doesn’t happen overnight — especially if you have never grown more than a few herbs before. To turn a dream into a business like this, you’ll need land, time, money, and perhaps even special certification or licensing depending on what you are selling and where, as some local areas have their own laws and regulations regarding the sale of produce, dairy, eggs, and other farm items.

Delivery Biz Pro is your small farm management software that helps local farmers all over the world manage their inventory, customers, and delivery routes all within one easy-to-use system. Of course, if you are just planting your first tomato plant, you might not need us yet. But for those who are serious about efficiently running their own small farm business, keep reading!

Step One: Friends And Family

This is perhaps one of the most fun things that occur when you begin a hobby farm. Eventually, you find yourself with more eggs or kale than you know what to do with, so you begin to offer your excess produce to close friends and family in the area. Maybe you even sell your eggs by the carton to coworkers who want farm-fresh eggs. You can feel justified charging them for these products because, after all, chicken feed, an irrigation system, and your hard labor doesn’t come free! Plus, even though you have close relationships with these people, they won’t mind spending a few bucks for fresh products.  

Step Two: The Farmers’ Market

Moving beyond giving or selling your excess produce to friends and family members is the world of the farmers’ market. Farmers’ markets are a relatively low-risk endeavor because if something happens to your harvest, like if your tomatoes are eaten up by a bunch of hungry rabbits, there’s not really much of a consequence other than you won’t sell your products that week and you might lose your vendor fee. Perhaps a few regular customers will be disappointed, but at the end of the day you didn’t promise anyone anything.

Farmers’ markets are also a good place to reach out to other local farmers for tips and advice. At the same time, you can put out feelers to those who stop by your tent. Ask them if they would be interested in joining a CSA or subscribing for a produce box delivery in the future. You might find that these services are in higher demand than you thought and you can start compiling a business plan to grow from a stand at the farmers’ market to a fresh produce delivery service.

If you are an organic grower or have free-range chickens or grass-fed beef or other production habits that you are particularly proud of, now would be a good time to work towards becoming certified organic or attaining other certifications. This will give you more credibility moving forward and show your customers that there’s a reason to buy local.

Step Three: Farm-To-Home Delivery

Finally, once you are sure your green thumb is here to stay, it’s time to start offering a farm-to-home delivery service. This type of service is in demand as more people want to know exactly where their food is coming from and how it was grown. Moving into this business model will require some hard work, marketing efforts, attaining the proper business licenses, and maybe even hiring on a few extra hands to ensure your supply can keep up with your demand.

Now, there are different kinds of farm-to-home delivery. Some farmers start up CSA farms, or community-supported agriculture farms. A CSA is a share-based farm where customers buy a share before the growing season to help you fund your farm and produce a hefty yield with your promise that you’ll provide them with a supply of weekly, biweekly, or monthly produce when it’s time to harvest. Typically with CSAs, subscribers get a box of equally distributed produce from that week’s yield rather than choosing which products they want.

Other local farmers choose to create more of an online fresh produce marketplace where customers can add products to their cart and have them delivered later on that week. For this type of system, you need to ensure you’re using a good fresh produce software to manage your inventory based on your expected yields so you don’t oversell your items.

If you run a dairy farm, or you sell fresh eggs, meat, or poultry, you can also allow your customers to decide what gets delivered each week or place recurring orders for certain items that are always in-stock. For example, maybe one customer needs a dozen eggs and a gallon of milk every week, but another needs two dozen eggs and a half gallon of milk per week. Allowing this system essentially allows your customers to frequently go shopping on your website while still providing you with a steady stream of orders.

Also very popular with local farmers are meal kits. Thanks to popular services like HelloFresh and Blue Apron, customers love the idea of having a conveniently boxed meal kit with a recipe that they can cook fresh at home. Even more than that, they love knowing that their meal kits are local and as fresh as can be. If you choose to sell these ready-to-assemble meal kits, you will need a way to track who needs how many servings in their kit, how often they want their deliveries made, and what kinds of meals they want that week or that month. All of this can get very confusing, but using a meal delivery software for local farmers can help immensely.

Need A Good Farm-Home Management Software?

If you are at a stage in your business model where you are making recurring deliveries to local customers, it is time to invest in a farm-home delivery management software. At Delivery Biz Pro, we provide just that. Our software truly does it all, from customer communication and automated emails and order updates to inventory management and delivery routing. Our goal is to take the hassle out of the logistical side of running a business by offering you complete transparency and customization of your software.

We’d love to talk with you more about our farm delivery and routing software! Drop us a line and we’ll set up a time to chat and see if Delivery Biz Pro is the right software for your local farm!

The post Steps To Growing Your Small Farm Business appeared first on Delivery Biz Pro - The Premier Home Delivery Software for Your Business Needs.

If the above situation sounds a little familiar, that’s because for many of you, it is. It doesn’t take acres and acres of land to start a small farm business. But it does take a little bit of planning and the right tools. At Delivery Biz Pro, we love helping small businesses like yours expand your audience by giving you the home delivery software you need to make recurring deliveries of fresh produce, eggs, dairy, and any other goodies you grow on your farm. Keep reading to learn more about starting a small farm business and how the right farm delivery software can keep you running smooth!

Starting A CSA

It might be time to start your own business. Many people who begin with hobby farms and homesteading eventually move into the world of CSAs, or community-supported agriculture. A CSA is a share-based farm-to-home service that provides the local community with fresh produce, milk, eggs, meat, and other farm items. Some CSAs operate on a pick-up process, where customers come to your farm to pick up their items. However, it is becoming more popular for CSAs to offer home delivery for their customer’s convenience.

CSAs require a customer base to buy into your service and pay up-front with the promise of quality deliveries of fresh food throughout the growing season. This means that organization is key to ensure that everyone gets what they paid for. It also means you will need an online presence to convince people to sign up for your CSA. Delivery Biz Pro helps with all of that, from keeping track of customers to routing your deliveries in a logical manner. With our system, you can see who has paid and who hasn’t, who has crates and ice boxes that need to be returned, who wants to cancel this week’s delivery because they’ll be out of town, and so much more. All of this is nearly impossible to keep track of on your own, and if you try to do all of this without an industry-specific software, you’ll end up with a mess of spreadsheets and a lot of confusion.

To start a successful CSA, you will need to make sure to comply with all state and local laws regarding food handling, storage, and distribution. Some states require you to register your CSA with the government or obtain a business license. You can contact your state and local departments of agriculture to inquire about specific legislation around CSAs in your area.

CSA Tips

We’ve compiled five tips for running a successful CSA in the infographic below! Be sure to keep reading to learn more details about these important factors.

Variety Is Key

When someone subscribes to a CSA, they are making an investment in something without truly knowing what the outcome will be. For this reason, it is important to make the CSA worth your customers’ time and money by offering a wide variety of products. Cucumbers and lettuce are great, but if you can include other farm-fresh produce like strawberries, carrots, onions, tomatoes, zucchini, squash, cauliflower, broccoli, peppers, apples, peaches, and green beans, your customers are going to have a wider variety. You can also take your products and make things like organic ketchup, fruit preserves, honey, and cheese so they are getting more than just produce. The goal is to give them enough variety in their produce that they don’t have to make a trip to the store.

Keep Prices Fair

Pricing for a CSA can get a little complicated. You want to ensure it’s “worth it” for both you and your subscribers. If the share prices are too high, your subscribers will feel like they’ve been taken advantage of. If it is too low, you will not be able to profit from your business when you take into account the price not only of soil for the vegetables and the feed for the chickens and goats, but also of price of the refrigerated delivery boxes and CSA software. However, people pay for quality food and service. The more reliable your delivery service is and the higher-quality your products, the more people will be willing to pay. Everyone knows that you can get a dozen eggs at the store for $1.89 and a gallon of milk for less than $3.00. However, customers looking for fresh local produce aren’t looking for the cheapest way to feed their family. They are interested in fresh food without GMOs or hormones and free-range eggs with bright orange yolks. They buy local because they want the best, so they will be willing to pay more than you might think.

Let Them Choose

Let’s look at kale. Kale is a superfood that is delicious in just about any form, whether it’s blended into a smoothie, cooked with a pat of butter, tossed in a salad, or dried into crunchy kale chips. Or, at least that’s one person’s opinion. Another person might think kale was literally grown by Satan himself and should only be fed to people as a form of torture. Kale is one of those produce items that you either love or hate. So, if you have the two types of people above in your subscriber list, one is going to be very pleased to receive a nice delivery of kale, and the other will be wondering why they subscribed at all. Letting your customers choose what is delivered every week is the key to keeping everyone happy. (We’ll describe how to use your CSA management software to organize this below.)

Trade Products For Work

You might be thinking, “How am I going to have the time to run a farm that feeds X number of people?” Going to providing produce for your close friends and family is one thing, but the more people you serve, the bigger your farm will be, and the more hands you will need to maintain it. However, before you hire someone, consider offering CSA discounts for members who pledge to help out. This not only helps to build a community, but saves you and your customers money.

Give Your Customers A Helping Hand

Include recipe cards and meal ideas with each week’s delivery. These don’t have to be super fancy, but helping your customers know there are multiple ways to use their produce can ensure that every last leaf is used and nothing goes to waste, again showing your customers that your CSA is worth the investment.

Choose An Industry-Specific Software

Our produce delivery software can be customized to fit your exact needs and desires for your small farm. You have control over what your customers can and can’t do to ensure there are no surprises on the delivery day. The DBP software also ensures routes are clear for your drivers and empowers them to provide the same service to your customers that you do.

Why Choose DBP For Your CSA Management Software

Delivery Biz Pro is your top choice for CSA management software. This small farm software helps local CSA owners provide their customers with the best and most reliable service year after year. When you choose DBP, you get more than just our produce delivery software. We will help you build a beautiful online marketplace where customers can sign up for your service. Our websites are completely customizable and designed for your industry. For example, you can decide if you require all dues upfront or if you will allow payment installments. Our websites are mobile-friendly, so regardless of which device your customer is using, they will be greeted with a functional and aesthetic website.

On your online marketplace, your customers can choose what gets delivered each week and manage their subscriptions. Because they have already paid their dues to your CSA, they can sign in and add certain items to their carts. If you have only a limited amount of a product, you can update your inventory on the site and customers will be met with an “out of stock” notice when that item is spoken for.

We also make it easy to send out emails and promotions to your customers so they know what produce is going to available next week or learn new ways to cook certain items. You can also post one-time items that might not be included in a produce box. For example, if you keep bees, maybe you want to give your customers the option to purchase honey, beeswax soap, and other bee products to have delivered with their recurring box that week.

When it is time to make deliveries, our delivery routing software will add your customers to a route based on certain specifications. Maybe you have a customer who only receives a delivery once a month rather than every week, or you deliver to one side of town on Tuesdays and the other side gets their orders on Thursday. However you decide to route your drivers, our software makes it truly simple. Your drivers can check off when a delivery has been made, send your customers a delivery confirmation text or email, and even account for crates or ice boxes that have been returned to you or are outstanding.

Our software can also generate multiple graphs and charts to show you exactly where your business stands on any given day, making it easy to know if you are profiting and by how much, which products are pulling your customers in, and so much more. Basically, we have created this software to be tailored to your business and easy to use. After all, we don’t expect you to be a software expert — that’s our job! We just want to make your job easier for you and your customers.

Our CSA Software Helps Small Farms Thrive

In order to run a successful CSA, you will need a way to keep track of orders, customers, payments, and delivery routes. Our intuitive and customizable farm delivery software takes the guesswork out and makes all of the logistics simple and easy to understand so you can focus on growing healthy food for your community.

When you work with DBP, you will have access to our software as well as our design and development team. That means if there is ever a problem with your CSA software, we’ll get to the bottom of it. We take care of software updates, keep your data secure, and backup your date twice daily so if a calamity happens, you won’t lose all of your important information and hard work.

We currently host nearly 7,000 fresh, local, and natural farms and suppliers in our system, who combined offer over 70,000 products to their customers, and our software alone ensures that over 600,000 deliveries get to where they need to be every single week. What this all means is that we’re not new to the game. We have developed a tried and true home delivery software (and continue to develop it based on your needs and feedback) in order to ensure your business is running as smoothly as possible.

If you are interested in using our farm delivery software for your business, then take twenty seconds to fill out our CSA software application and we’ll figure out a time to get in touch and chat. You’ll notice that we have an “application” rather than a big ol’ button that says “buy now.” This is because we want to make sure your business model and our software will be a good fit before you make an investment. After all, when you’re happy with your software, we’re happy — and, more importantly, your customers are happy! Get in touch with Delivery Biz Pro today to see if our CSA software solution is right for your business!

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