July 2019 - 22

FARM MARKET & AGRITOURISM
Analytics can help in making big decisions
By Brian Moyer
FGN Columnist
One of the most common issues I hear
from retail farm markets is " can my market
sales support hiring another employee? "
To determine whether it can or can't,
we need to know
how our market
is performing and
what analytics we
can use to improve
market performance
and profitability
so we can make
informed decisions.
There are many
different analytics
BRIAN MOYER
we can use but I'm going to focus on sales
per square foot.
This is a great way of knowing how your
market is performing. It can help you identify
strong and weak departments of your
market. Sales per square foot is calculated by
taking your total gross sales for the year and
dividing it by the total square footage of the
sales space. Don't include space used for
office, storage, prep, etc. - just the space
where product is displayed and sold.
Total annual gross sales/total square
footage = sales per square foot.
products that go together which can
increase the number of transactions
or " basket value. " Good signage can
also help with cross selling. One of the
best ones I've seen was a sign for green
beans. Yes, green beans. The sign said,
" Greens Beans .99. Goes well with our
new potatoes and smoked country ham. "
The sign takes you from thinking about
purchasing beans to thinking about a
ham supper!
Customers need to linger
Our customers aren't always in a hurry.
Take a critical look at your market from entry to the checkout. Photo: Gary Pullano
How does the sales per square foot
measure against other farm stores as an
industry? This figure is hard to find for our
industry, but for retail small grocery, the
figure to shoot for is $500 per square foot.
To improve the sales per square foot
number we can focus on a few things.
Market layout
Take a critical look at your market from
the entry to the checkout. Are you using
your displays and lighting to highlight the
products to their full potential? Unclutter
the store. Messy or cluttered areas will
confuse customers and not encourage sales.
Do you need to revisit your floor
plan? Your floor plan should guide how
your customers move through the space
and guide your product placement. Is
the signage consistent and attractive?
Remember, signage is your " secret
salesperson. " Place staple and popular
items strategically so customers must
move through most of the sales floor to
get to them exposing them to most of your
offerings. Where is milk usually located in a
grocery store? In the back of the store.
Cross-selling
Create packages or bundles of
Your market is a destination. There are
reasons why they come to the market.
Do we know what those reasons are? Use
that information to create more reasons
for them to hang around. Research shows
that the longer customers stay in our
markets, the more they tend to purchase.
Let's not forget the appearance of our
market on the outside. Inviting displays
outside of the market can help increase
the number of people who visit your
market each day.
Of course, most of the information is
in your point of sale system. How often
are you reviewing that data and what
are you doing with it to improve your
market performance? FGN
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July 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of July 2019
