Diversifying your sales channels helps ensure the long-term success of your business. This is true across all industries, especially in a world where small farms are now outpacing their large-scale cousins in the number of new operations per year. Small farms that are able to diversify their sales channels can begin to sell to more people in more places, and become indispensable members of their local food supply. As a farmer, imagine that you currently only sell at the farmers market, and one Saturday is canceled due to weather. Or, you only sold to chefs when covid-19 struck and the restaurants were forced to close. 

If you only sell through one sales channel, the level of risk can be quite high.

Adopting a multi-channel sales strategy through online sales, small local farmers are succeeding in ways not seen before. They now have the ability to sell directly to households, restaurants, and wholesale, all through a synced inventory with a single online point of sale. Read on to see how they’re making it happen, and how you can too.

Let’s break it down.

Through selling to multiple channels, you’re able to pick and choose which sales channels to focus on depending on the season and your capacity. More importantly, if one sales channel stops – you have others to fall back on. 

First, let’s talk about organization. 

The more sales channels you decide to take on, the faster you may start to feel overwhelmed. How am I going to manage all the different orders? How do I ensure that I don’t sell out-of-stock inventory? 

The answer: using different price lists in your online store.

A price list is your “shoppable” list of products that appear on your online store. For your different sales channels your pricing, pack size, and availability might change. For each customer type, you can create a unique price list to reflect this.

With Local Line, you’re able to have as many price lists as you want added to your subscription using ONE shared inventory! This is huge because it means you’ll never sell out-of-stock inventory. 

Here are some tips to help you make the most out of your price lists and stay organized as you sell through multiple sales channels: 

Keep Wholesale Price Lists Private

When using Local Line, you have the ability to make certain price lists private. This means that customers who are not given access to this price list are not able to view it. Keeping your wholesale price lists private is important for two reasons: 

1. It avoids anyone from accidentally ordering from a price list that’s not meant for them.
2. It avoids price and availability confusion when a household customer accidentally lands on the wholesale price list and sees different pricing, pack sizes, and availability. 

Send a Price List Schedule

A price list schedule is an automated email that is sent to all the accounts tied to a price list. This acts as an automatic order reminder to your customers. You can customize the message and frequency. 

Local Line users who send a weekly price list schedule see 3x as many orders in their store, and their average order size is 53.1% greater! 

Sell access CSA products to Retail Customers

Sell the same products to your retail customers and CSA members by using two price lists. Open your CSA price list for members to place their orders a day before opening your public price list. This way CSA customers are ensured first access while still selling excess products to the general public!

Jesse and Meghan from Milky Way Farm open their online store for CSA ordering on Tuesday using a unique, private CSA price list. CSA members are able to order until Wednesday evening. On Wednesday morning, Jesse and Meghan open their public catalog and send out a reminder to customers through their price list schedule. 

CSA members feel they get the first pick and they’re able to move excess inventory to retail customers. 

Whether you’re currently selling through multiple sales channels and are looking for an organizational solution or you’re just starting out this year, keeping your sales channels separate through price lists is revolutionary! 

No more manually sending wholesale catalogs via email or through the phone. Keep all your orders in one place using ONE shared inventory. Add additional price lists to your Local Line subscription today!

Looking to add a few more price lists to your Local Line subscription? 

Download our NEW guide: How to Sell Through Multiple Sales Channels

In this guide, we go through the best ways to get organized and use your online store to the fullest. Use this easy-to-follow farm-focused handbook to diversify your sales channels today!