Double Your Farm Revenue with Delivery as a Service
Discover how to access 99% of buyers by leveraging Delivery as a Service. Learn how to double your revenue, ditch the logistical office work, and meet modern consumer expectations with professional, doorstep delivery.
For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources
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[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast, the go to podcast for do it yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers. This podcast is hosted by Barn2Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand and sell online and in person.
Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer Podcast.
James Maiocco: Welcome to The Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm James, the Chief Operating Officer at Barn2Door and your host for today's episode. As you may be aware, Barn2Door provides a solution for independent farmers to help them make more money, ditch the office work and look like a pro. We're all about helping farmers build your brand, own your customers, and sell direct, online and [00:01:00] in person.
In today's conversation, we're gonna get into an exciting new announcement from Barn2Door delivery as a Service. Now farmers who use Barn2Door may leverage a set of third party logistics partners or three pls to actually pick up food from your farm and deliver it to your buyers. Believe it or not, it's now available nationwide to farms within 90 miles of a major metropolitan area of 250,000 people or more.
Now there are a ton of details to dig into and today I'm happy to welcome back Kevin Soncrant who manages our success team, including onboarding and account management.
Kevin's been with the business now for several years and will share more information for us about delivery as a service. Welcome back, Kevin. It's great to see you.
Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. Thanks for having me, James. Glad to be back.
James Maiocco: Well, before we dive into today's topic, deliver why don't we share a little bit more with the listeners about your evolution of Barn2Door?
When did you join and how's your role evolved over the years?
Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. I joined Barn2Door, it'll be four years ago this June. So I came in as an account [00:02:00] manager. So I was working with all of our farms. After they graduated onboarding, they would start working with an account. Manager to help them establish best practices, reach their business goals.
and that was a great role. I loved it. It fit really well with my background. I will still meet with farmers today in a similar function, but I was eventually promoted to run that account management team. So I oversaw that small team for about a year and a half. Two years and then, again, promoted after that to oversee the entire success team.
So I work both with our onboarding team and then our account management team as well. and then in addition to working with them, I work with farmers every day, still helping them onboard, get their business system set up and then after they graduate, onboarding, working with them more closely, one-on-one as well.
It's been a great ride. I really love what I do here. Love helping farmers out, and really excited today to be talking about. Delivery as a service and how we can help farmers continue to reach more customers.
James Maiocco: Well, we're super thankful for your contributions Kevin. You're a fantastic leader and an example for many people just to see how hard, our [00:03:00] team here at Barn2Door works to help farmers be successful.
And speaking of success. There's a lot of things that Barn2Door can offer a farmer when it comes to building a direct to market business. irrespective of the tactics, whether it's delivery or not, what are some of the key attributes you see of farmers who are successful?
Kevin Soncrant: Sure the most common key attribute, really like every farm that signs up with us is gonna have quality products.
And that really is a must. especially from the customer standpoint. You know, when they buy local, we, as customers, expect to have higher quality products and thus we're willing to pay more money for a higher quality product. So that is really one of the most important things, is to have high quality products.
Things that. Taste better, they look better. They have higher nutrition. Those are key factors that consumers are looking for when buying local food. In addition to that, our most successful farms are gonna have a trustworthy brand. 'cause buyers will spend more, with brands they trust. I think it's something like 47% of buyers spend more with brands that they trust, right?
So we have a variety of tools and resources here for farms to help [00:04:00] build a brand. But, you know, if you're brand new or even been in business for years and don't know if you have a great brand, really the basics of a brand is, understanding that it's the cumulative experience your customers have.
When they interact with your farm, whether it's online or in person, so whether they're on your website or their social pages or they're reading an email from you or they're in person, maybe at an event shopping from your, in-person store, whether it's on your packaging or merchandise, the more consistent brand experience that buyers get from you, the more they're gonna trust you, and that's what's gonna help you attract more buyers as well.
Two other quick points here. When we look at our most successful farms, one around pricing and packaging products, our most successful farms focus on building packaging for their products that buyers are looking for. So when we talk about that, we're generally looking at bundles, and subscriptions.
' cause buyers want convenience, and so giving them the option to purchase. A small or medium or a large bundle that has a sampling of products from the farm. One click to get a variety of products just makes it easy. So as an example, if you're selling beef and you only [00:05:00] sell in quarters, halves, and wholes, you're really only serving 3% of the market.
' cause that's all that owns a chest freezer, right? 97% of Americans don't own a freezer big enough for even a quarter beef. So they can't even. Store your product. And many of them couldn't even afford a quarter beef, right? So giving them smaller options that still bundle your products is really a crucial factor for driving higher conversions.
and then lastly, and. Arguably one of the most important ones is convenience. In today's e-commerce world, convenience is king. And as farmers, if we're doing all three of the other ones flawlessly, if we have a great product, a great brand, our packaging is on point. But if it's not convenient for buyers, they're not.
Gonna purchase your products, right? If they have to drive 30 minutes or an hour out of their way, you're just gonna lose the vast majority of buyers. They're not willing to do that. They're used to shopping from grocery stores that are five or 10 minutes from their house at most. So the farms that make it convenient and easy for their buyers to purchase are really the ones that will drive higher conversions.
And that convenience starts with an online storefront where buyers can purchase [00:06:00] at any time of the day, make a couple clicks, put stuff in their cart, pay digitally, and then it extends beyond that, into the fulfillments, which we will. Talk more about it here. That's why I'm so excited to talk about delivery as a service because it is the ultimate convenience for buyers and one of the easiest ways to help farmers get their products to their customers.
James Maiocco: Well, I'm super excited about delivering as a service as well. Kevin, like you said, I know looking at all the data that farms who offer delivery to the doorstep of their buyers make two times more, per month in average revenue than farms that do not, right? So it is a game changer for farmers who are looking to grow their business and make more money.
So, let's talk about buyers first. You mentioned buyers a couple times here, right? 'cause at the end of the day, you know, that's who is gonna. Purchase and pay for the product. What are buyers' expectations today? Right. I mean, they have a lot of choices, a lot of options that are available to them. What should a farmer expect when thinking about their buyers?
Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. We live in an Amazon era, right? Uber Eats era of e-commerce, where convenience is a click away. People can get on their phones and make a couple taps with their thumb, and the products will be at their [00:07:00] door within hours or a couple of days, right? Many buyers expect this from any company they're purchasing from.
Right. And so to scale a business, really independent farmers have to transition away from just being available at local markets only. Right. Or on farm pickup only to be easily accessible, at the doorstep. So being able to get their products to the buyer's doorsteps. This means like direct delivery.
It's not just a luxury, right? It's a strategic necessity, to capture 9/10 customers who wanna purchase local food farms must offer the convenience of products delivered directly to their door. It's where you get people like me and like you James, that are working, you know, 10 plus hours a day during the week.
And, you know, if the only offerings, uh, for farms are to get products during the week, it's just really hard for us to be able to do that. But we'll happily pay to have things delivered to our door. Come home. You know, there's an ice chest full of farm fresh products on our doorstep, and we just throw 'em in the freezer.
That convenience is really what's needed for us. Even if I wanted to purchase from a local farm that offered pickups, during the week, I wouldn't be able to.
James Maiocco: I know I'm certainly guilty of this. I have three different farms who deliver [00:08:00] food to my doorstep. In fact, just two nights ago I had a tote on my doorstep when I got home.
It was just perfect. So, let's talk a little bit more about delivery as a service, right? The concept of delivery is not new, but what does delivery as a service mean for farmers, right? Like, what does this entail?
Kevin Soncrant: So at its core, Barn2Door now offers delivery as a service to help farmers move their products directly to the doorstep of their customers. This allows the farmers we work with to attract more customers, delight buyers and very importantly, give time back to farmers. So just a couple quick bullets.
Some highlights for farmers to understand how delivery as a service works, drivers are gonna pick up products directly from the farm and then they'll deliver those products to buyers. Everyone's kept informed on delivery day, which means there's automated text messages the morning of to inform buyers of the upcoming delivery window 15 minutes prior to
the driver arrived with the products. Customers will get a text with a map that they can click on that's interactive, which allows them to see where the [00:09:00] driver is directly from their phone. And then they'll be delivery confirmation texts as well with a photo. So, there's visibility, along the entire process for both the farmer and the buyer.
Really just making farmers look extremely professional and giving them a top-notch service.
James Maiocco: That sounds really slick, and I know, I've seen it in action. But let's talk about some of these advantages for the farmer, right? What the experience looks like from a farmer and a buyer standpoint.
Kevin Soncrant: Yeah. I mean, for farmers, they look like a pro, right? This allows you to look like a professional at the highest level.
It's convenient for your customers to order and receive your products. Even better, all your farm products are insured a hundred percent. You don't need to make extra investments in people, in vehicles, insurance, maintenance. There's a lot of factors there where costs can add up quickly when doing delivery on your own.
And then I mentioned earlier, but it's worth mentioning again, you get time back, right? Rather than being on the road delivering for an hour or two or three or a whole day, you're able to just load up a car, or another vehicle from our delivery partner and [00:10:00] then. The rest of the day is yours to check off farm tasks or do marketing or, back of the office work.
And best of all, there's no upfront costs, so delivery as a service will generally pay for itself with reasonable delivery fees for the vast majority of our farms. And then from the buyer perspective for customers, right? Getting local farm food just became hassle-free. Which is really exciting for us and for me as well because I love to buy local.
And I'm probably, I know I'm in the minority where I'm able to go to the farmer's market every weekend on Saturdays, and most consumers are not. They have busy schedules. They can't make time for it, so this allows them to buy online anytime from your farm. and then get food directly on their doorstep.
In addition, as a buyer, we're kept completely informed, so we know every step of the process, and it's just as easy and convenient as ordering from any big e-commerce platform now.
James Maiocco: Yeah, that's pretty amazing, right? Any local farm now has this opportunity to look as professional as well put together as Amazon, right?
And it's just gonna arrive on the doorstep for the buyer. There's really no excuse now for why a buyer wouldn't opt into purchasing from a [00:11:00] local farm. In fact, I'm excited to see how this is gonna take off and help farmers expand more aggressively. I mean, to some degree it almost sounds too good to be true. I mean, there must be some limitations around the parameters for delivery as a service. Help our listeners understand, you know, where is this available and like what are some of the limitations that they should expect.
Kevin Soncrant: Sure. I mean, it's important for farmers to understand that our delivery partners run for-profit businesses too.
So just like the farmers, it has to be worth their time. So to make it worth their time and to make it make sense, the farms that wanna sign up for this have to be within 90 miles of a major metro area, which would mean, uh, MSA population of 250,000 people or more. This assures that there's an adequate source of volume for drivers for our partner to be able to send to the farm, right? In addition to that, farms must agree to at least 20 fulfillments per delivery day. So that means if they're doing, you know, once a week delivery, they have to have 20 deliveries on that day, or if it's once a month that they're doing,
still 20 deliveries on that day. You know, drivers aren't gonna drive 90 miles just to deliver a dozen eggs. It's [00:12:00] just not worth their time. Right? Um, so you'll need to have 20 orders, which will be delivered on a given day. Otherwise, it's just not gonna make sense for our partners. and then farms are responsible for packaging their products.
So, the drivers are experienced with food, proteins, produce, dairy, however, they're still perishable products. So what we recommend is insulated tote bags. Typically, this is what's gonna work best for the vast majority of farms. They're reusable, there's marketing of, uh, opportunities for your farm when people are out shopping with your tote bags, and it makes packaging really easy, when, you know, packing them into a vehicle.
Alternatively, we do have some farms that will opt to do like cardboard boxes that have insulation. Those certainly will work as well.
James Maiocco: So when thinking about getting started with delivery service, I mean, what are some of the costs that a farmer could expect to pay? I mean, it sounds great.
Let's say I'm a farmer here outside of Nashville and I've got, you know, a hundred, orders that could be fulfilled every week. And let's say I'm within that 90 mile limit. What am I gonna be expected to pay in order to use this service?
Kevin Soncrant: Sure. Great question, James. So typically the costs are gonna range [00:13:00] anywhere from eight to $15 per delivery, but there are many factors that would impact that delivery fee.
For example, the distance from the farm to the city that they're servicing, right? So a farm that's 30 miles away versus another that's 90 miles away, that's obviously three times the amount of gas for our delivery partners. So, you know, further away, generally you'll see a little bit higher cost per delivery.
Some other really important factors to consider would be fragility to products, right? If you're talking frozen meat, that's not very fragile versus, you know, glass bottles, which is obviously more fragile. Delivery window requirements. So when the farm is looking to have those deliveries, if they're within reasonable hours like 8:00 AM to 9:00 PM they'll have drivers that'll be readily available, makes it easier.
Another really important factor to consider is buyer density, right? In that city the farm is servicing. So, ideally there're. A handful of zip codes as the farm and really just trying to get as many buyers in those areas as possible. That's really where they're going to be the most successful.
A couple other factors that would influence what Farms should expect to pay for deliveries of service would be, you know, quantity of deliveries with the [00:14:00] 20 minimum more deliveries that they're doing. Generally they'll see the cost come down a bit, and then the frequency of deliveries, whether it's weekly versus every other week versus monthly, those are just a handful of factors that would influence what farms could expect to pay for delivery as a service.
James Maiocco: That's great. Well, I really appreciate the clarity there 'cause I know that's a question we hear often. The other side of this too is like, well, tell me a little bit more about the fleet of vehicles that your delivery partners have to offer. Right? I know there's a lot of third party logistics carriers out there and they have all kinds of different types of vehicles, right?
So what, what should a farmer expect?
Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, so farmers should expect, anywhere from cars, you know, whether it's a Prius or SUVs, to minivans. And then in some of the larger MSAs, we can see sprinter vans that will be doing deliveries as well, especially for farms that are making larger deliveries in larger cities.
James Maiocco: Got it. And are the vehicles refrigerated?
Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, great question James. They are not refrigerated, right? So these are all 1099 contractors. So they own their own vehicles. So don't expect any refrigeration for that. Now that's not to [00:15:00] say you couldn't get lucky 'cause there are some larger metro areas again that will have sprinter vans, some will have reefer units, but don't assume.
That the vehicles will be refrigerated. So, the average vehicle should be able to carry 25 orders. But yeah, like I said, the bigger the city, the more sprinter vans there will be, which will increase capacity for carrying products as well. And then a nice added benefit from farms that we haven't talked about up to this point is the ability to favorite or ban drivers, right?
So if they have a driver they really like, they can favorite them, making it more likely that they would get that driver and vice versa. They could ban a driver if they see, uh, the need to do that as well.
James Maiocco: Are there any other costs that a farmer would have to take on to get started with delivery as a service as well?
Kevin Soncrant: No there's not. So that's really important for them to understand. All the drivers are fully insured. There's no other cost for fuel or maintenance of vehicles. And then on a side note, important for farms to know if they have existing drivers, our delivery partners will actually take on those existing employees as 1099 contractors.
So just a great opportunity for farms to remove some of those costs [00:16:00] and make it easier for themselves to not manage that aspect of their business.
James Maiocco: I know that's a big one. In fact, I was on the phone this morning with a big farm in California who was excited about that aspect of just being able to offload some of their own contractors.
But the other cool part about it too was driver replacement guarantees. Right. Which is, if you're inside those, you know, normal delivery windows, sometime between 8:00 AM and 9:00 PM that if a driver is unavailable, they guarantee a driver will be there as a backup as well. Right. Which is really cool to see.
So a nice headache to resolve for farmers who don't wanna deal with a driver who calls in sick. So what does the day-to-day operations look like when it comes to the DaaS experience or deliveries of service experience for a farmer?
Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, let's talk about that from both perspectives, again, for the farmer and for the buyer.
So for the farmer, they should be expected to pack and schedule, right? So the farm will pack the orders and then they'll also set the delivery timeframe. So we'll set that up in your barned door e-commerce storefront. You can work with our team in one-on-one meetings or on office hours to make sure everything's set up the way that you intend there.
There'll [00:17:00] be a farm pickup, right? Once the orders are placed, drivers will then pick up products directly from the farm. They'll deliver to the buyers. So drivers will complete all those deliveries, within the timeframe. All that's tracked in real time. So there's live delivery, visibility, photo confirmation. Really great experience for farmers to know that, all the boxes are being checked.
Then, like we said, it's really important to reiterate. They can choose their drivers so they can favorite preferred drivers and ban the ones they don't want. from the buyer's perspective, they'll purchase the products from your online storefront, on Barn2Door. So they won't really notice any difference on that first purchase, right?
They're just gonna purchase within the delivery timeframes that you set up. where they'll start to see the difference then is, once those deliveries are on the way, right. Or the day of delivery, ' cause they'll be receiving those text message updates. Those will all be automated notifications to keep the buyers informed.
They'll be able to track the delivery with real time maps, and then everything's insured to the door. So products are fully insured to the buyer's doorstep. We had talked about it, but it's really important for farmers to understand this is a truly professional experience they're bringing for the buyers.
So buyers will [00:18:00] see a polished look from your farm. They'll see the reliability that you're able to provide with consistent delivery days and text message updates. And then it's just making it as easy as possible to buy from your farm. There's really no excuse at this point. If customers want to buy local, if you can deliver to their doorstep, there's no excuse for them to not buy from you at that point.
James Maiocco: Well, this sounds super compelling, Kevin, and I know we've had a ton of existing farms who are getting started with this already today and have already rolled it out, and we have lots of new farms that are signing up to participate in this new program. If I'm a farmer and I'm listening to this podcast today and I'm interested in rolling out deliveries of service, what should they do to get started?
What's it look like? Depending on my farm business today.
Kevin Soncrant: Yeah, let's break it down. Talk about a couple different business types that might be already with Barn2Door, right? So there's gonna be farms that already have an existing delivery business. So delivery zones are already set up, they're doing deliveries.
They have the minimum delivery threshold, and if they don't, maybe they're doing, you know, deliveries three times a week. They can consolidate those days to make it [00:19:00] once a week to get to that 20 delivery per day threshold. so we'll work with them to make sure everything's set up properly there.
Particularly if they're not doing subscriptions, we'll help them set that up. 'cause that's the easiest way to guarantee that they get to that 20 minimum delivery threshold. Is having 20 buyers on subscriptions or 25 on subscriptions. That's guaranteed sales. There's no better peace of mind than having that.
And so once everything's set up, you know, make the announcement to their buyers. After that we'll look at farms that, a portion of their business is delivery, right? So, again, they've got delivery zones set up. We'll look at, maybe expanding that to some additional zip codes, looking at, offering additional products.
Again, looking at bundles and subscriptions. And then we'd really wanna focus on with these farms to be able to announce to their buyers that they're now offering expanded delivery or new delivery. So looking at lapsed buyers is the easiest, right? Take a farm that has, say like 500 emails in their Barn2Door storefront as an example.
Maybe only 50 or a hundred of them are actively purchasing from them because, you know, they can't get [00:20:00] delivery right now, or it's only pickup. So going after those 400 or 450 lapsed buyers that have bought at some point in the past, but likely aren't buying right now, just because it's not convenient is one of the best ways to grow that customer base and hit that 20 delivery minimum threshold.
And then lastly, there's farms that are just getting started with Barn those farms, the most important thing is. complete onboarding, get their store set up and then get their existing buyers and business to use Barn2Door right. After that they'll be able to work with our account management team to build up the customer base.
and then once they have sufficient volume, then we'll be looking to announce delivery as a service for them, when it makes sense at that time.
James Maiocco: This is just such an awesome new service from Barn2Door it's just really great to see that there's just a whole range of options for a farm, whether they've got existing delivery today or if they're just getting started, there's an avenue for them to be able to lean in here and really build a, new line of revenue.
And like you said, get time back on the farm. So we've covered a lot of ground today on delivery as a service. Is there anything else you wanna share before we sign [00:21:00] off, Kevin?
Kevin Soncrant: Sure. Yeah. Just a couple things to summarize what we discussed. Delivery as a service is a game changer.
There's no doubt about it. This makes it easier for buyers to purchase from farms, gives farms time back, makes them look more professional, and helps them build a stronger brand. There are so many factors here that will help farms really grow and scale their business. So for farms that are serious and they're organized, this can readily change the entire trajectory of the farm business that you know. You can escalate, uh, and increase your sales significantly quicker by offering delivery to buyer stores.
The most exciting thing, I don't think we talked about this yet, James. The most exciting thing is there's no shortage of buyer demand. Especially in large cities like we live in Nashville here. There are more people moving to this city every single day. There's more and more buyers that are becoming aware of how important it is to know where their food is coming from, to buy local, to get higher quality products. This is the best time to be getting into local farming. [00:22:00] And, for farms that will make it easy for those people that want to buy local to get their products, they will be able to capture that share of the market.
Really it's just for farms. It's more of a question of, if they're ready to evolve their business model, to keep up with the times. 'cause this is where it's heading, right? More and more buyers are gonna be expecting delivery. And the farms that offer it are gonna be the ones that will get ahead.
So the farms that are willing to shift with the times, make it easier for buyers, streamline their packaging options. They're the ones that are gonna find success with this.
James Maiocco: Well said Kevin. Well, hey, I want to extend my thanks to you for taking time out of your day and joining us on this week's podcast episode.
You can check out more of Barn2Door on our website, social Media Handles on Facebook and Instagram. Here at Barn2Door we're humble to support thousands of independent farmers all across the country, and we're delighted to offer new delivery as a service program to help farmers access more customers, make more money,
ditch the office, work and look like a pro. If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or looking to sell more products direct to market with delivery, go to barndoor.com/learnmore. Thank [00:23:00] you for tuning into today's episode. We look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.
Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn2Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities. You are the backbone of our country.
For free farm resources, or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barn2door.com/resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.