Update on my food delivery service, Exit 9

[catherine]

I just need to share with you guys because you were there within minutes of "conception"--the invitation by a local poultry/farm market to come and present my Exit 9 idea.

Since then, my daughter has constructed a draft website (www.exit9delivery.com). We have a Facebook page. My DH is not only on board, but an equal partner.

Yikes.. this is really happening!!! And I'm so excited! And scared! But who cares!

Just thought I'd share.



PS I welcome feedback on the functionality of the site. The shopping cart won't be ready until May 15. I have to work on the "About Us" page--I realize it's too long and drawn out. And I'm also putting more obvious "Sign Up" button on the home page. Other than that, please do tell me what you think--either privately or publicly

thanks!

[Kestra]

I didn't read every little thing but I really like your website. I think the length of "About Us" is fine. Best of luck on this venture.

[The Storyteller]

It looks great!

And I applaud your effort to connect sustainable farmers to customers, which supports both. We need more of that.

[redfox]

Here is the powerhouse business in WA. They even fly produce boxes to AK!
http://www.fullcircle.com

Congrats on your business!!!!!

[Blackdog Lin]

catherine: how awesome! I perused your website and loved it. It seemed very intuitive and easy to use, and simple and not overloaded with information or graphics. Lovely photo. I agree with you about your "about us" section - it just doesn't quite "parse". But everything else is worded so well - I know you will fix it to your satisfaction.

Wishing you very well on your business venture.....

[fidgiegirl]

So awesome!! How did you decide to go for it? I mean, what was it about this idea that really said to you, "me! me! I'm the business you need to do at this time!"

[Dhiana]

Hi Catherine -
I've been reading your other posts about your idea of delivering local food to end users with interest. If I lived in the states I know I would be a user of a CSA, farmers markets, etc. I am a consumer who does take the time to read the fine print, ask the tough questions, a heavy internet user. I do want to see you succeed. Good planning and flexibility will help see that through :)

Your link from farm to table sounds like you prepare meals from this food for delivery. Maybe 'Your link from farm to front door' is a better description.

Who is your target market with this website? Is it the end consumer? Or the farmer/producer? The mission statement is a bit confusing as to which is the target of your website. Maybe a tab for farmer/producers to apply to be a supplier with your service? A separate tab for end consumers?

FAQ: I thought CSAs already delivered. What is the difference between your delivery service and a CSA?
FAQ: We will deliver a great selection of local, Central Jersey sourced food. Central Jersey has consistently been a wonderful source of pasture-raised beef and lamb, poultry, fruit and vegetables, bread, wine, and local produce such as honey and baked goods. 'Hope to have' is too soft of phrasing, customers want to know what you WILL do.

Add your email to the end of FAQ page. In fact it should be easily accessible on every single page at the bottom of the page also. After reading the information, you are expecting customers to then scroll all the way up to click the email link at the top of the page. You want that link right where they are, not where they need to scroll for it. Oops, it looks like that email address posted at the top of each page is not clickable. Make it clickable.

Define what locavore means to Exit 9 as far as it's sources of food either by miles/exit#/counties. As you've defined "locavore" as far as where you deliver.

I love how Full Circle provides photos and info about their source farms/producers/artisans. Many of the fruits and vegets I buy here in Japan have a picture of the farmers on them. I'm guessing this is what will be under the Partners Tab?

How It Works: Tighten up your delivery policy, you do NOT want to be delivering to a questionable neighborhood at 2AM!! Nor does a Farmer want to provide you with the product at 1:30AM for you to make that delivery.

What is your policy if they are not there to accept delivery? Do all deliveries require a signature? What is the policy if the delivery is stolen from the front porch, etc.

How it works Step 4 should say: "Enjoy your fresh, local produce and choose your next delivery with us!" The word choice of "consider" is too wishy-washy, soft.

Links with the CSAs you would be delivering would possibly improve both of your bottom lines.

Hope this helps.

[lhamo]

I really love the logo!

Dhiana's suggestions are awesome. Since you have referenced counties as the delivery area, could you use the same approach for referencing where your suppliers are located?

Personally, I like it when the "About Us" is written in the first person. It feels a bit detached when you write in the third person.

I'd include a "How to partner with us" section in the "our partners" bit -- you can explain your standards (useful for both potential partners and consumers) and this helps the website to be not just an outreach tool to customers, but to draw in new partners, too.

In the FAQ, if you aren't going to require certified organic for your partners you should explain that.

This is really marvelous -- I hope it takes off quickly and brings you lots of success and happiness!

lhamo

[Tussiemussies]

Hi Catherine, so exciting that you are making progress toward starting your business. I tried to find you on Facebook but a liquor store kept coming up when I put in Exit 9. Even when I spelled out the word nine....?

[Dhiana]

https://www.facebook.com/Exit9delivery

[catherine]

Wow! Thanks, everyone, for the support and the suggestions, especially Dhianna--I am definitely going to incorporate your great suggestions. Funny because my husband said that we should include a vendor tab--so sounds like his instincts were right on. thanks for the Full Circle website, redfox--I'm bookmarking all the good websites I can find that might help me develop mine.

lhamo, Blackdog, Kestra, Storyteller--I'll tell pass along your positive feedback about the logo/website to my daughter --she'll be so pleased!

Kelli, this venture has been like a lot of things that happen when you just kind of go with the flow. The "about us" really is true--I was bummed that I just didn't have time to get around to all the local places that had great food, so I thought others might feel the same way.

It was just kind of a spark of an idea when I went into the local poultry/farm market after Christmas. I had no make-up on--I was just coming from the bank and stopped to get some chicken sausage, and I was leaving and something made me blurt out, "have you ever thought about a delivery service?" And turned out the person behind the counter was the executive chef. And one thing just led to another. My husband thought it was a dumb idea but he's now totally onboard and we're actually good working partners, which may be my biggest surprise.

But, believe me, I have a LONG way to go, obviously. We're just going to keep putting one foot in front of the other and hope it works.

I really have a dream of making it a worker co-op if it really does get to the point where I need a number of employees. We'll see.

[Zoebird]

I have to say, Catherine, that this is *awesome*.

I'm in the process of developing a community farmer's market, and I wonder if this would be a good addition to my process. I just have one big question: do you do the deliveries, or have a delivery service or courier, or what? How does that aspect work -- practically speaking -- for you guys?

Thanks!

It's a great concept, and I look forward to reading about your partners and stuff. DH and I were looking to do a page-per-producer on our farmer's market page. . . "their story" -- possibly making little documentary films about the farms and farmers. :)

[Zoebird]

Also, I do think that the best ideas come from "I need this. How do I get it?"

DH and I *love* a good, honest and simple farmer's market. There's not one near us or in our neighborhood. There are several in town -- as I've mentioned before, somewhere. But to be able to walk to the farmer's market, mingle with our local friends and hang out/etc, and also get some kick-butt produce.

I thought a farm-to-table delivery service would also be great, but I couldn't quite figure out how to make it "go." Maybe you and I can chat behind the scenes a bit. :D

[reader99]

I like the website. It's clear, readable, pleasant to look at. Simple enough in its design that I'm not put off by too-muchness, whether of colors, pics or data. The front page picture is very attractive to me. I really can't find anything to improve.

[SteveinMN]

I agree -- nicely done Web site that looks clean and modern. I think Dhianna provided a number of great suggestions. My thoughts:

- What is the X by the Visit Blog button? It's not clickable now.
- The smartphone icon by the email address -- for ... ?? Related to that, have you tried looking at and navigating the site on a couple of different smartphone browsers?
- I agree that "About us" could be pared back significantly. I would even suggest considering that you merge it with "Mission" into something like "Who We Are", with "we" meaning both Exit 9 and the people behind it. And -- a small point -- the statement "the first thing she learned was that there was nothing she could buy at the supermarket, except for fresh meat, fish, and produce that did not have high fructose corn syrup in it" is highly exaggerated. There are (literally) tons of frozen, canned, and dried products -- even in the tiniest supermarket -- that do not contain HFCS and plenty of "fresh" products (bags of salad with dressing, bbq meat/injected meat) that do. Such a statement only invites people to challenge it. MHO, of course.
- For "Our Partners" you might want to consider just a line or so summarizing their business and then a link to their Web site home page. You don't want to spend your time updating information on your site when it's already somewhere on theirs. Interested people will click through.
- Just my personal preference: I don't need the Facebook and twitter logos to twirl around when I hover over them or the Recent Posts entries to jog to the right on a hover. "Lighting up" should be sufficient.
- I would move the Search box up toward the top of the page, perhaps by the soon-clickable email link. Or omit it entirely; it's duplicated on the page footer.
- email: You did well in going for a contact form rather than a mailto; those just get abused by spammers. You might want to look into those email widgets that present the address as a clickable graphic leading to your contact page (I would rename "Leave a reply" to "Contact us" or such because ... well, what are they replying to? Page content? You-all?). If the comments will be displayed anywhere on the Web site, you'll have to figure out what to do about comment spam. For that matter, I could see using that Contact Us link on every page. You spend a lot of screen real estate on those Leave a reply fields, which makes the useful page footer harder to find.
- In fact, now that I look at it, I don't think you need the navigation bar in the top third of the page and in the page footer. They're just too close to each other on most pages.
- The "Order" page is going to redirect to a secure page, right? :) And maybe some verbiage (assuming it's true) that personal data collected (name, email, etc.) will be kept confidential. Will you have a Terms of Use for the ordering? Or just customize some free shopping cart software?

Please don't interpret these comments as dislike. I think you have a good idea here and the Web site generally looks pretty good. This is just advice coming from someone whose job for many years was to break Web sites. :)

[rosarugosa]

Catherine, I sure wish we had a service like this near us! I think it's a wonderful idea and your website is shaping up beautifully. My one piece of constructive criticism (as a fan of Robert Frost) is a minor error in the quote where woods and road are switched:
Two woods diverged in a road, and I–
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(from The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost)
Good luck with your venture!

[Zoe Girl]

I wanted to chime in on support. We had a type of service when I lived in Boulder many many years ago. We got a certain order of vegetables as I recall that were fresh and ready to go and from local sources. So I would get bell peppers cut up and salad washed and spun dry and other vegies ready for stir fry. I can't recall all that it included but there were options to get local eggs and other prducts. When my daughter was a baby we used to drive out to a farm to get unpasturized goat milk and we could also pick up fresh eggs. It was good and quite a job to remember to drive out to the country at the right time.

Keep us updated!

[catherine]

Steve, I definitely appreciate your great suggestions!! I asked for feedback, and I didn't expect anything this useful! Really--if you guys lived in Central Jersey you'd be getting a free delivery or two in exchange for your help here.

Zoebird, we will be doing the deliveries ourselves, until we feel it's the right time to hire people. But that IS the core of the business. Unlike you, we are not growing anything ourselves. And funny you mention the videos, bc DH is a video/TV editor/producer, and we've already arranged some "food network" style videos with one of the local chefs. We think this might help to differentiate us from just another delivery truck. Feel free to PM me if you have questions, but at this point, I probably have the same unanswered questions. I can't wait until we've actually gotten a month or two of delivery behind us.

rosarugosa: Oops.. I'm usually a pretty good editor, but never of my own stuff. Thanks for the correction.

And, thanks for the support, reader99/Zoe Girl

[Zoebird]

First, I'm *so psyched* for you and your future clients. Do you have clients yet? You might consider what Mary Portas recommended to a small green grocer. Let me see if I can find the episode, and maybe you can watch it. I love love love love adore love worship love love worship Mary Portas. Here is the episode (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00swfz7), though it's currently not download-able. Maybe you could find a version somewhere? Or request the DVDs from BBC? I think i'm going to do that.

Anyway, what Mary recommends to these folks is that they start going door-to-door and reach a sales goal. They are a local grocery starting a veggie box home delivery service.

By going door-to-door, you are introducing yourselves to your customers -- putting a face to the business. And, you can ask them what sorts of foods they might want, etc.

Or, you can get a booth at a local market, and not only use the time to meet providers, but also customers. Or, you can create an event for locavores -- such as a farm to table with a local chef event -- and see if those individuals who come to the meal would be interested in the service and get their email addresses.

Before you launch, you could have as many of 10-30 customers!

Second, I love the idea that your husband has in mind. Having local chefs *at* the producers using their products as a "star" of the recipe would be beautiful. I love the cooking show "Kitchen of Light" which was always filmed outdoors somewhere in Norway. It was *gorgeous*. In one of the shows, it started with the chef catching a fish in the stream, then picking some wild tyme and juniper berries, and then came to the cooking area -- having talked about the tradition in some way and introducing the recipe -- and then cooked it up with some other local produce and herbs, and it was just so amazing to watch.

You can publish the recipes along side, market the chef and the farm ad your business all at once -- which might mean that you could get the chef to provide his/her service for free for the publicity, etc. And I'll tell you what -- I'd watch them because i love cooking shows of all kinds. And I don't even cook! LOL

With this, we have a show here called Country Calendar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Country_Calendar). I wish you could see it. I can't find it so that it's downloaded where you are -- though you might be able to. Country Calendar is a particular joy for us. Slow paced, people talking about their farms, and beautiful scenery. The pace is what makes it so lovely. It's relaxing. You feel like you are visiting a farm and in the pace of life of that farm. Just lovely.

Third, the fact that you are the delivery providers is really awesome. It forms relationships and can make a big difference. Make sure your delivery van is well branded (signage) as you go around. It's massive marketing. AND, you can add to that.

A friend of mine is a plumber, and he started getting those magnetic business cards from vistaprint. He would put them on his van, and then everywhere he went, people would grab one. He even put a little painted sign next to the area that said "Need our service? Please take a card!" And then the card-magnets underneath that spot. He has to replenish them pretty frequently, and that's pretty much how he gets ALL of his business now.

So, another friend of mine -- who runs a mobile yoga service in melbourne -- branded her car and did the same thing. She is having staffing issues because she has more people interested in gigs than teachers available! She's working all of her teachers to the max, right now, and still gets about 1 call per week form people looking for classes or private lessons in their homes, offices, or clubhouses!

We're planning on doing something similar with our pop-up studio in another town -- just to get the word out!

It might be another inexpensive, passive marketing stream that could work well for you!

I'm so excited for you (and for myself, honestly -- cuz i'm totally jazzed about my pop up shop idea -- which might be something that works for you, too. . . that's kind of what the farmer's market thing would be.. . yeah).

In terms of questions, I forgot them now. I wrote them down somewhere. . . :D

[Dhiana]

A couple of other random thoughts I had...


'SCHEDULE DELIVERY' Button - This is the first thing a busy suburbanite wants to see from a delivery service. This should be big, bright and right near the top of all screens across all entry points; Mac, iPad, Androids, etc.


Fb & twitter logos need to be larger more noticeable.
Keep up the postings on fb & twitter...let us join you on building up the business...Show us the delivery truck, what's great about it, the new logo on the side, a new farmer who has joined your service, etc.

Date to begin accepting orders?

[Mrs-M]

Super excellent job, Catherine! So happy for you! Can't wait to hear more about it (and it's progression) as time goes on.

How did you select the picture logo? I love it, because it relays a sense of solidness as to your dedication towards.

[catherine]

DD (my graphic designer) went to New Orleans last week, but I had sent her your feedback and this is her reply:


Holy crap - that is a lot of great feedback! You owe them an internet high five for the quality of their feedback. I honestly think all of it was on point too ...Yay for nice people! :D

She had some questions for me and asked me to distill all the info which she'll help me incorporate.. but her email made me realize how lucky I am to have such supportive online friends.


ETA: response to Mrs-M: which "picture logo" did you mean? The "Exit 9" logo or the picture on the website? In either case, that was my DD, who is the best graphic designer for this job for a few reasons. Thanks for the compliment!