The Homegrown Vendor Blog

Compare 8 e-commerce platforms built for farms selling direct to customers. Real pricing and honest pros and cons for every farm size and budget.

A practical guide to networking with other vendors at the farmers market — how to start conversations, collaborate on cross-promotions, build a vendor support network, and turn the people around you into your most valuable business resource.

A practical guide to hiring help for your farmers market booth — when it is time, who to hire, how much to pay, how to train them, and how to handle the legal side so you can grow beyond what one person can handle.

A detailed comparison of the best canopy tents for farmers market vendors at every budget level — Crown Shades, ABCCANOPY, Eurmax, Coleman, Impact Canopy, and E-Z UP — plus essential accessories like weights, tables, and sidewalls.

A practical guide to selling at the farmers market in the rain — when to go versus stay home, how to set up your booth and protect your products, and why rainy days are often your best per-customer sales days.

A practical guide to handling slow days at the farmers market — why they happen, what to do during the downtime, when slow days signal a bigger problem, and how to build revenue outside market day so slow traffic does not wreck your income.

A checklist of 14 common farmers market vendor mistakes that cost you sales without you realizing it — from invisible pricing and cluttered displays to skipping card payments and not collecting customer contacts — with a practical fix for each one.

A step-by-step guide for farmers market vendors to calculate the true cost of a market day, figure out their break-even point and effective hourly rate, compare markets against each other, and decide when a market is worth it and when it is time to move on.

A practical guide for farmers market vendors expanding beyond one market — how to evaluate new markets, split inventory without shorting your best market, schedule multi-market prep weeks, avoid the burnout wall at three markets, and grow revenue through online ordering instead of adding more market days.