How This Farmers’ Market is Thriving with In-Person and Online Sales

Co-market managers Richard and Morag have been running the Owen Sound Farmers’ Market together since August 2019. They love bringing their community together at the market, and that’s why they knew they needed to revisit their sales channels to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020.

Now running their online store for over a year, they are happy to continue to offer their vendors and customers an alternative way to shop. We caught up with Richard in the video above to see how his market is thriving both online and in-person!

Starting their Online Store with Local Line

Converting their market online was a daunting task, but luckily they were able to get set up relatively easy and painless “We were up and running in probably two weeks with a full store, 20 vendors in there, all ready to go! We converted the market to curbside pick up and created all new systems and put them all in place in about three weeks. This was very busy, but having Local Line was a lifesaver! I don't know how else we would have done it had Local Line not been available to us.”

“Surprisingly, the software has been very easy to understand for vendors,” says Richard. “It was great to see that vendors could easily adapt to the software, even those with little tech experience. When help is needed, the team at Local Line has been fantastic. There are no stupid questions—everyone is free to ask for help and get it!”

Thriving Online and In-Person

Even though the market is allowed to open and operate in person, Richard stresses the importance of keeping their online store moving forward. It allows them to be prepared for anything they face and quickly adapt to restrictions as they come.

“The biggest benefit has been the same all along, and that is connecting our products with our consumers. There’s nothing more important to a market. That is our lifeblood. If we can’t connect the products with the consumers, we’re out of business, and that affects many people because the farm economy is a major part of our farm economy.” shares Richard.