by For your local customers, visiting your farm is as convenient as visiting the grocery store.
After a quick walk or drive, they can see exactly where their food comes from, experience regenerative agriculture first-hand, and stock up on their favorite products fresh from the farm.
For folks who live farther away, farm-fresh products are harder to find — but the rise of e-commerce has changed everything. Now, customers can enjoy your harvests by placing an online order and having them delivered right to their door.
The benefits don’t stop there: Selling your farm’s goods online expands your customer base, boosts your sales, and makes the farm-to-fork experience more accessible.
In this blog, we’ll share how to start selling your farm’s goods online using an online farm sales platform — plus our six favorite online farm sales platform providers.
Online Farm Sales: The Basics
Diving into the world of e-commerce can seem intimidating, but there’s only one tool you need to launch your online farm store: an online farm sales platform.
This tool lets you create a website, accept and manage online orders, process transactions, and manage your inventory. It shapes how your farm operates and what it’s like for your customers to order from your farm.
Must-Have Features for Your Online Farm Sales Platform
Let’s look at a few specific features you should look for when searching for an online farm sales platform:
- A website builder makes it easy to create a custom website where visitors can browse your offerings, learn about your farm’s practices, and place orders.
- With flexible fulfillment options, you can offer everything from local pickup and delivery to nationwide shipping.
- Sales by weight allow you to sell your inventory down to the last ounce and provide your shoppers with exactly what they want.
- Sales-boosting features like subscriptions and loyalty points ensure that customers choose your farm time and time again.
- Integrated payment processing streamlines online orders and ensures security for you and your customers.
Every farm is unique, so take the time to collaborate with your team and come up with a list of features you’d like to prioritize during your search.
The Best Online Farm Sales Platforms
We’ve covered the basics; now it’s time to explore your options. Here are six providers who can help you start selling your farm’s goods online.
1. Shopify
If you’ve done any research into the world of e-commerce, you’ve most likely come across Shopify. This popular provider allows businesses in all industries to create simple online stores.
We’ve included Shopify on our list of online farm sales platforms because it’s a great option if you’re completely new to selling online. While it doesn’t have farm or grocery-specific features and you’ll have to pay extra to sell products by weight, Shopify is a solid choice if you plan to sell a smaller selection of shelf-stable items like honey, jerky, or canned goods.
Shopify has several pricing options, but their most popular plan costs $79 per month.
2. Local Line
Local Line is a new provider offering an innovative set of features.
Their platform allows you to create a website and sell directly to customers, but it can also connect you to grocery store and restaurant buyers looking for farm-fresh inventory. Local Line is currently working on a marketplace feature that would allow shoppers to browse offerings from all available farms, giving you another chance to make a sale.
Local Line offers three tiers of pricing, and the most popular plan starts at $199 monthly.
3. FarmBrite
Another online farm sales platform to check out is FarmBrite.
We’ve included FarmBrite on our list because of their unique operations management features. While their e-commerce features are similar to other providers on this list, they offer a robust system for planning harvests, assigning work to farm hands, and tracking the progress of your farm’s projects.
If you’re looking for an online farm sales platform and a complete overhaul of your farm’s operations, FarmBrite might be the right fit. Their most popular subscription costs $79, but other options are available on their website.
4. Food4All
Food4All is an online farm sales platform run by a team passionate about connecting food lovers with food producers.
Food4All allows you to set up an online store, fulfill orders, and generate sales reports — and if you’re a small farm just starting your e-commerce journey, their software is free.
While Food4All offers a free subscription, you can add additional features for a fee. Check out their pricing sheet for the full breakdown.
5. Barn2Door
The next online farm sales platform on our list is Barn2Door.
Barn2Door offers a powerful selection of e-commerce features, a custom website builder, and add-on design and branding services to help set your online store up for success. Their software also lets you launch marketing campaigns to attract and retain customers.
Barn2Door offers subscriptions ranging from $59 to $249 per month. However, their design services, customer support, and marketing features will cost extra.
6. GrazeCart
GrazeCart is our final and favorite online farm sales platform.
With GrazeCart, you can easily build a custom website for your farm, sell products by weight or by unit, track stock levels, and retain customers by launching a subscription service or loyalty program.
Along with GrazeCart’s curated list of features, you’ll have 24/7 access to a team of experts committed to your farm’s success at no additional cost.
Use our pricing tool to get an instant, custom quote for your farm.
Choosing an Online Farm Sales Platform: Next Steps
Now that you’ve reviewed our list of the best online farm sales platforms, it’s time to take the next steps on your e-commerce journey.
The best way to learn if an e-commerce platform is right for you is to take it for a test drive, so we recommend starting your GrazeCart trial!
Launch your free, two-week trial and see GrazeCart in action today.