FAQ's Vendor Onboarding
New to Farmshare! Here is a guide to all you need to know about selling products on Farmshare. If you don't find the answers to the questions you have here, you can reach out to us directly at info@farmshare.co.
Payments and Refunds
How are payment disbursements broken down?
- Once a customer completes a payment for an order and the order has been delivered to the customer, the transaction is seen as complete.
- Per transaction the breakdown of deductions include:
- Stripe processing fee: 2.9% + 30 cents
- Farmshare platform commission - 15%
- Once this is completed the funds are sent to you.
We send funds to you via Stripe Connect. You can set up your Stripe account and link it to Farmshare here. Stripe is a third party payment processor that we use to process payouts securely, seamlessly, and faster than traditional bank transfers.
Payouts are made monthly to the the stripe account you’ve linked to your Farmshare vendor profile.
You can initiate a refund from your vendor dashboard on farmshare. Here is a video demonstration of how you can do that.
Are transactions and your data secure?
We employ excellent security on our website and work with industry leading payment payments companies like Stripe to make sure all payment transactions are secure.
Shipping Products
Gel freezer packs are recommended. There is a cooling trade-off: dry ice keeps things colder but doesn’t last as long. Gel packs don’t keep things as cold but last longer. Not all gel packs are the same - be sure to use packs rated for 0˚F or colder.
The more meat, the less coolant : meat ratio you’ll need, due to the cold thermal mass of the meat. For this same reason, larger volumes of meat are more likely to ship better than smaller volumes, and thus you should consider a minimum order of 5 to 10 pounds. Generally, 1lb of coolant for every 2.5lbs of perishables is optimal for shipment.
It is important to pack the box well, filling all space with newspaper and/or cellulose wadding. This will improve insulation and prevent damage to your products.
These temperature indicators are a great idea. They provide insurance to you and assurance to your customers. These cheap paper strips can detect if the temperature inside the shipment has reached an unsafe temperature (41 degrees fahrenheit per USDA standards).
The easiest way to experiment with packaging materials is buying from ULine. Here are boxes and liners. These liners are more expensive than what you can get at scale ($4-5 / liner), however you have to buy a large minimum. So this is a good place to start. 12x12x12 is the most common size. It should fit ~20lb of meat.
You can create shipping labels from your farmshare vendor account and download the label for shipping. Here is a video demonstrating how to do so.
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- When selecting packages for shipping, use carrier provided boxes that would fit your order.
- Choose 2Day shipping for the best rates given our partnership with FedEx.
Farmshare enables you to select your pickup days. Most of our vendors select Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We will schedule a pickup to your farm/business for the order to be picked up.
Another option is drop offs, you can drop off the order at any nearby FedEx station with the shipping label on the package for shipping.
What is minimum order quantity for free shipping?
If you offer free shipping when the order value is say $200. Then you can enter this in your vendor dashboard and once a customer shops from your shop and the order value gets to $200, they receive free shipping on that order. Here is a video demonstration of how you can do this.
What box dimensions do you use to ship products? Most common dimensions used are:
- 10x10x10 - 1000 In3
- 12x12x12 - 1728 In3
- 14x14x14 - 2744 In3
While creating a shipping label, choose the carrier provided dimensions for the best rates. The dimensions may not be exact but consider the volumetric quantity for the boxes. Choose between :
- Fedex Small Box(S2) - 420 in3
- Fedex Medium Box(M2) - 644 in3
- Fedex Large Box(L2/L2) - 1,100 in3
- Fedex Extra Large Box(X1/X2) - 2,200 in3
You can have a look at Fedex One rate charges here and the box sixes for shipping here.
Selling Products
- You can add products on this product template to help you get started. It will help you organize your products and make it easier to enter the data once you start creating your product.
- Adding products is easy on Farmshare. Here is a video demonstration of how you can add products.
- What you need to add products to your store you need:
- Product name
- Product Price
- A short description of the product
- Product pictures at least 3 - we recommend using quality descriptive square photos at least 600 x 600px.
- Package size used for shipping(in)
- Weight of the product(lb)
- Once a product is published it will be available on the farmers market.
You can manage your inventory right at the product level. Here is a video demonstration of how you do it.
We sometimes provide discounts to customers to promote the platform and the products vendors offer. This discount once offered to customers will not affect the payout that you receive.
Vendor Profile
Your vendor profile is what customers see when they visit your store on Farmshare. It highlights your brand and your service offerings to customers.
What you need for your vendor profile.
- About Shop - This section of your profile is where you tell your story to customers and they get to know more about you and your business. You can highlight processes that make you stand out such as regenerative agriculture, grass fed beef, being USDA certified e.t.c
- Images and videos - you can add different images to your vendor profile:
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- Profile picture
- Shop Logo
- Shop Banner
- Farm images and videos - this could be pictures of the farm, the team behind the business, pictures and videos of the processes e.t.c
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You can your social media links onto your vendor profile so customers can reach you on social media and grow your social media audience. Profile you can dd include:
- Youtube
