Vendor Resources
We strive to help our vendors promote their business and the benefits of buying local. As an MFM vendor, you'll receive an online vendor profile in our list of vendors that includes your products available, times at the market and contact information. We also feature vendors every week on our homepage and in our weekly email newsletter. And we encourage vendors to join our Memphis Farmers Market Facebook community to post notes to our MFM fans about products you offer or weeks you'll be at the market. There are also opportunities to advertise your business on our website and e-newsletter. We also offer vendor stall merchandising tips to help our vendors grow their business at the market.
Interactive Marketing
Here's a collection of tools, providers, resources we recommend to grow your farm, producer, artisan business interactively.
FoodHub
FoodHub is a new online directory and marketplace for regional food buyers and sellers. Thanks to FoodHub, food buyers can walk to their computers, type in the word “raspberry” and quickly access a list of regional raspberry producers. They can sort their search results by specific attributes, check out various raspberry producer profiles, send one a message through FoodHub’s message center, and arrange for delivery – either direct or through a mainline distributor. Never before have Northwest raspberry producers been so highly visible to the region’s food buyers. And never before have food buyers had it so easy.
LocalDirt
Local Dirt is a Madison, WI based company that uses an interactive Web site to help farmers and other producers sell their food locally to restaurants, stores and consumers. Access to the services for individuals, for small farms and farmers' markets is totally free. LocalDirt only charges the wholesalers, large farms that deliver to grocery stores and the like. And they do not take a percentage of the transaction.
View a demo of how LocalDirt works
Q&A with the founder
Small Farm Central
Small Farm Central provides professional and affordable web services (websites and ecommerce) to direct-marketing farmers. Each site is administered through an online control panel that turns any farmer into a web developer -- in other words, websites that simply work. We know farm websites because we've been there at the "ground" level. I developed this service after helping start and manage a CSA vegetable operation in western Colorado. In marketing the farm, I developed a website that integrated photos, a calendar, social networking tools, and a mailing list that became the center for the farm's best customers. Not every farm has access to the skills that it takes to develop a site like that, so Small Farm Central became the answer to: "How can every farm have access to advanced web tools like these at a price that makes sense for the farm budget?" Mention that you're a Memphis Farmers Market vendor and Small Farm Central will waive the setup fee.