Post
Topic
Board Project Development
Re: [ NEED YOUR OPINION ] Online farm (food).
by
J. Cooper
on 10/03/2019, 08:59:51 UTC
You could do something similar for your project. Instead of directly assigning a parcel of land to each customer I would rather set bigger parcels of land up for hire. On each parcel, you grow a specific vegetable/crop.

Yes, I thought about splitting land on "sectors" by a specific vegetable/crop, instead of growing everything at a small part of the land. And I like this idea about percents, it can be turned into something crazy like the market, where people can trade with each other using an kind of online shares on vegetables or idk, futuresTongue 
It's funny that you say futures (I am assuming in an ironical fashion Smiley)because the first ever futures were contracts negotiated for agricultural commodities. Since prices of crops tend to fluctuate the futures contract serves as a hedge for the buyer and supplier against price fluctuation. Financial futures, on the other hand, are, relatively speaking, a very recent phenomenon.

I'm also starting to think about "packages" which will include most popular vegetables, that most of the people buying every week and let people buy something like a year "subscribe", one payment and they will be getting this package every week.
I'm not sure if you've ever heard of HelloFresh but they basically put that concept into practice. With the addition of meat and fish and other protein-based ingredients for the customer to prepare an entire meal. They also work with subscriptions, so as long as your subscription is valid you receive a package every so often.

In the end, the user will get organic clean vegetables with 40 - 50% off from prices in supermarkets.
Why all the effort with ordering ahead, live streams of growing, and virtual ownership, instead of just having online orders? If your customers can order online (ahead of harvest day), you save all the hassle and still deliver the same product. Unless of course the main goal is to make it like a game, but I don't expect (recurring) customers for that.

I really don't see how you are going to beat supermarket prices by 40 to 50%, especially since prices for vegetables are already pretty low since supermarkets buy in bulk and often times have very favorable deals with local farms.
Supermarkets indeed buy at low bulk prices, but their sales price is several times higher. Cutting out the middle man is beneficial for both farmer and consumer, but distribution is more difficult.
Sure but most larger chains still work with really low price margins, mainly due to strong competition. And I am not sure if the costs saved by cutting out the middle man outweigh the distribution and transport costs from the farmer directly to the consumer. And more importantly the lost convenience. Don't get me wrong I am all for cutting out the middlemen but I don't think we can replace low-margin supermarkets with a cost-efficient alternative (as of right now).