In early 2020 as COVID-19 hit the United States, consumers quickly moved to purchasing food directly from farmers. Farmers responded by moving quickly to online sales, contactless payments, and contactless deliveries. In order to assist farmers with choosing a software platform for their direct sales, the National Young Farmers Coalition produced a Farmer Guide to Direct Sales Software Platforms. That guide focuses exclusively on farm-specific sales platforms and includes details on pricing, features, and links to additional information on 19 different platforms.
This report details farmer ratings for the five most popular of those farm-specific sales platforms plus four additional platforms that are not farm-specific and are used by many farmers. This report is designed as a companion piece to the Farmer Guide to Direct Sales Software Platforms and will not repeat information contained in that Guide. Instead, it will augment the Guide with farmer-to-farmer ratings and details about farmer experiences using the platforms.
The information in this report was compiled through a national survey of farmers conducted by the CSA Innovation Network from 29 May to 30 June 2020. There were a total of 170 anonymous responses, with 143 farmers contributing data on the 23 platforms included in the survey, and 59 of those farmers contributing data on multiple platforms. This report highlights the 9 platforms that received ratings from at least 10 farmers. For information on additional platforms that did not make it into our top 9, see the National Young Farmers Coalition Farmer Guide to Direct Sales Software Platforms the Lake Pepin Local Online Platform Comparison Chart for Aggregated Sales and the Resources at the end of this report.