Let’s talk data. Farming successfully relies on many data inputs. You monitor rain, soil health, and planting schedules. What can often be neglected, though, are the less tangible aspects of your operation. 

You can plan, plant, grow, and eventually physically hold a carrot, for instance, but it is tougher to have that tactile connection to business growth, customer acquisition, and even the dollars that flow digitally into your account. 

When you use Local Line for your business, you have access to a plethora of data at your fingerprints. From who’s your best customer to what’s your average order size, Local Line reporting makes it easy to quickly search, find, and track important sales data.

Here are the top 5 reports we think you need to be keeping an eye on:

Top Sellers

This report will tell you exactly which products are best sellers. At any point in time, knowing your top-selling products can answer the following questions:

• What do my customers like best?
• Are my best sellers also my most profitable products?
• What should I grow more (or less) of at my next planting?

Number of Orders

This report shows you how many orders you’ve done this month. Use this metric month over month as a benchmark. If you have last year’s data, compare this to it.

Repeat vs Non-repeat Customers

Loyalty is one of the most profitable things you can build amongst your customers. This metric shows how many orders, over a specific period of time, were from repeat vs. non-repeat customers. The goal for any successful direct-to-customer farmer should be to develop repeat business. This makes your revenue more consistent and predictable.

Average Order Value for Delivery/Pick Up Plans

This is a big one! Tracking average order value (AOV) by delivery area can tell you whether or not offering delivery is really worth your time. Seeing a consistently low AOV in one delivery plan may make you consider if it is more valuable to not offer that service, either to that specific area, or at all!

Conversely, it can show where your highest AOV and total sales are coming from! Have a great AOV/sales number in one area, but a drooping metric in another? Try marketing upsells specifically to the customers on the underperforming route. If it merits canceling that delivery plan altogether, encourage customers to pick up along the route of a more profitable one or at the farm.

By taking total sales per delivery plan, and dividing it by the number of orders, you gain the average order value of each plan.

Abandoned Carts

This metric shows you, out of all customers who loaded up items into their cart, what percentage did not end up checking out. For you, this is lost business. A healthy abandoned cart rate is around 30% and below. Depending on what you sell, that can range from as low as 5% to 20% on the low end for non-perishables or retail.

There are many services out there that specialize in helping businesses tackle the problem of cart abandonment. From automatic follow-up emails to personalized text messages, there is a whole host of options for reconverting these folks into buyers! In the case of the direct farmer, we suggest sending a weekly email to anyone with an abandoned cart! It’s as easy as exporting the emails of those customers to your preferred email marketing tool or sending a personalized note. 

For even more help with farm data, be sure to download our new handbook:

The Direct Farmer's Data Handbook

What to track, why, and what it means as a direct-market farmer.

Use this handbook to give you more meaning to the numbers that farms should be tracking in order to really see what is happening with their business.