Websites for a farm shop or food and drink producer
Sold while it's still fresh.
We build websites for farm shops and food and drink producers in Bude, North Cornwall and North Devon: what is in season this week, a mail order or veg box page that takes the order, and gift hampers sold through the winter. A website starts at £1,195, or we build it free from £25 a month.
From £25 a month, or from £1,195Every price
“The polytunnel is full of purple sprouting for a fortnight, then it goes over, and the website has said 'seasonal veg' since March.”
This week's stock on the home page, and a mail order or hamper page that takes the order itself, so the market regulars buy from you between markets too.
Your year moves with the harvest.
The words below are the ones you use. We write the site in them rather than translating them into something a stranger would say.
The polytunnels decide the shape of the week before you do. Purple sprouting in February, the first asparagus a few weeks after, soft fruit through June and July, then squash and the sloes for the cider by October. A cheesemaker or a brewer works round a different clock: a batch ready on a Tuesday, a cask ready to tap, a bake sold out by ten. None of it waits for a website to catch up.
Most of the trade still walks in, or sets up alongside the other stallholders at Bude's Friday market on the wharf. But plenty of people now expect to order a veg box, a cheese board or a case of cider without turning up in person, and to have it waiting or posted out. If the site cannot say what is ready this week or take that order, it becomes a phone call to catch between jobs, or a sale lost to whoever makes it easier.
Then the year turns again in November, and for a lot of farm shops and small producers this is where the margin gets made back: gift hampers, gift vouchers, a Christmas order book that used to run on a clipboard by the till. That trade wants to happen online, in October and November, from people who will not drive out to ask what is in a hamper before they buy one for someone else.
- the polytunnel
- in season
- the farm gate
- veg box
- mail order
- farmers' market
- small batch
- gift hampers
- the cold store
- the brewhouse
Farm Retail Association and Harper Adams University research, 2022
£1.4bnis the annual sales farm shops generate across the UK, in the last full survey of the sector
Source: Farm Retail Association and Harper Adams University research, 2022. The Farm Retail Association's one full survey of UK farm shops, still the reference figure for the sector; no update has followed since.
www.harper-adams.ac.uk/news/206784/new-harper-adams-research-demonstrating-14-billion-annual-sales-impact-of-britains-farm-shops-revealedWhat your site actually has to carry.
Not a feature list. These are the things a customer of yours is trying to do, and where each one has to sit before they give up and ring somebody else.
| What it needs | Why, for you | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|
| What is in season, this week | Produce moves in days, not months. A page that says 'seasonal veg' all year round tells a customer nothing they did not already know. | Home page, changed from your own phone in a minute |
| Mail order, a veg box or a hamper, ordered without a phone call | Someone fifteen miles away cannot queue at the gate on a Saturday, but they can still buy the cheese if the order and the payment happen online. | Its own page, on the online shop |
| Farmers' market days and stockists | Half the enquiries are 'are you at the market this week' or 'who else sells it', and a page answers both without a phone call. | A short page, updated when the calendar changes |
| Gift hampers and vouchers, sold from November | Christmas is when a lot of farm shops and small producers make their margin back, and most of that trade wants to happen online, not queued at the till. | A seasonal page, live well before December |
| Hours that match the season, and match Google | A farm shop's hours often shift with daylight and the time of year, and the wrong ones online cost someone a wasted trip. | First screen, footer, and the Google Business Profile, all identical |
| Photographs of the produce, the herd or the brewhouse, taken this year | A polytunnel photograph from three summers ago sells three summers ago. Buyers want to see what is coming out of the ground or the brewhouse now. | The pages people land on, and the Google profile |
What we’d do first.
Before a rebuild, before a rebrand, before anything with a monthly fee attached to it. In this order, for a farm shop or food and drink producer.
This week's stock on the home page, changed from your own phone in a minute, so the purple sprouting isn't still listed a fortnight after it's gone over.
A veg box, mail order or hamper page that takes the order and the payment, so the same demand you get at the farm gate on Saturday doesn't get lost as a voicemail on Tuesday.
Your markets and stockists written out with days and towns, so someone in Holsworthy or Launceston knows where to find you without driving out on the wrong day.
And what we wouldn’t bother with
A recipe blog
You will not write it every week once the harvest is in, and a page of recipes last touched in spring reads worse than no page at all. Put that time into keeping what is actually in season current instead.
The words your customers actually type.
Not keywords. Half-sentences, typed with one thumb, usually within a few miles of you and usually about to spend money.
farm shop Stratton
veg box delivery Bude
Cornish cider online
Christmas hampers North Cornwall
Every one of those is either a page on your site or a line on your Google Business Profile, and usually both. Local SEO and the Google profile is priced on its own, set up once and kept right through the season.
Read next: Wix or a web designer?
What that takes, and what it costs.
Every one of these has a published price. Where it’s a range, a short call turns it into one fixed figure in writing before any work begins.
- Website design and buildFree build from £25/month, or from £1,195This week's stock on the home page, where the farm gate is, and when you're open.
- Online shop and online orderingFrom £2,495Mail order, veg boxes and gift hampers ordered and paid for on your own site.
- Local SEO and Google Business ProfileGoogle Business Profile setup £90Found for the farm shop and the produce, with your opening hours right on Google.
- Care planFrom £60/monthHosting and backups, and from the Grow plan up what's in season changed when you send it over.
- Photography and videoStock photography £145; shoots quotedThe produce, the land and the people, shot in season.
Most of what we can show you so far is holiday parks, glamping and holiday home sales, built by the same two people under our holiday-park name. The thinking is the same and the figures on each study are lab measurements, stated in full. See the work.
Care plans, marketing and the smaller extras are all on the pricing page. When you know what you need, start your project.
The questions we get, answered straight.
Can you sell veg boxes, cheese or cider from the site, not just list them?
Yes. Taking payment online for a box, a case or a hamper is the bigger build, because it needs stock, delivery areas or collection slots, and the card system wired in properly. If most of the trade is still the farm gate and the market stall, a small site that says what is in season and takes an order by form or WhatsApp may be enough to start.
We only do the Friday market and a couple of stockists. Do we need a website at all?
You need enough of one. A page that says which markets you are at, who stocks you, and what is in season answers most of what people actually want to know, and that fits inside a small business website. An online shop is not worth paying for until you are ready to pack and post outside the market.
Can people order a Christmas hamper without ringing us?
Yes, and it is worth setting up before the rush rather than during it. Hampers and vouchers sold from the site take the order and the payment in one go, which frees the till and the phone for whoever has walked in. That is part of the bigger build.
What does a website for a farm shop or producer cost?
A Fast-Track Website, from £1,195, covers the pages, the seasonal information you can update yourself, and where you can be found on market day. Taking orders and payment online, for veg boxes, mail order or hampers, is a bigger build: a Bespoke Website, from £2,495. Google Business Profile setup is £90 on top of that. Hosting and updates are the care plan, from £60 a month. Or we build it free from £25 a month on a pay-monthly plan. Every price is on our pricing page, and a range is fixed in writing before we start.
We reply within 24 hours
Send us your web address. We'll tell you what's costing you orders.
Built in Bude: The Bank at Bude, The Triangle, Bar Thirty Five. See all the work
We look at it the way one of your customers would: on a phone, in a hurry, on a Bude signal. Then you get an email from Leonard or Rebecca with the one thing to fix first and roughly what it would cost.
The check costs nothing and there is no sales call after it.