Georgia Organics - Market Tool

Choosing Your Market -- A Direct Marketing Decision Tool

We encourage you to register with the site. By registering, the site will remember your answers to the worksheet questions.

If you do not wish to register, you can still complete the worksheets, but you will have to start from scratch each time you visit. To login without registering, use guest as both the username and password.

Beginning

Farmers' Market * On-Farm Market * CSA Market * Internet Market * Compare Your Results

About

Direct Marketing

How This Tool Works

The following information is presented to help you determine your ability to meet the barriers that are a part of each of the marketing strategies. Each type of market has a unique level of these barriers. You will look at the five main factors that create barriers to entering any of these direct markets.

FACTORS TO CONSIDER

The first factor is location of the farm in relation to population centers, which will determine how big a customer base you have to draw from.
The second factor is special expertise, that is skills and knowledge beyond that needed to grow the product. Most special expertise involves either marketing skills or computer skills.
The third factor is transportation. For some of these markets, you must transport the product, and a reliable, appropriately-sized vehicle is essential.
Physical resources are needed for each type of market. These will vary from a tent and table to more elaborate computer set-ups.
The last factor is regulatory constraints. Regulatory constraints refer to the licenses, fees, insurance, taxes, zoning regulations and certifications that are necessary for some markets.

The barriers to enter the four types of markets were determined by interviews with local farmers, information collected from published sources, and personal experience.

For each of the barriers, you will judge your ability to jump that barrier based on the information provided, and then answer a question about your ability or farm situation. You will need to complete the evaluation for each of market in which you are interested. Once you have answered all of the questions for each market, the website will compare your answers to data collected from our research to determine if you can jump the barriers and show you the markets that will be best suited to your situation.

To get started, click here to return to the table of contents to read more information about the markets, or click here to begin your evaluations with a Farmers' Market.

Click Here to return to the table of contents.