Christina
Mehlhorn
July 11
The First Real Market
Although this was not the first market that I had product to sell, this was the first market where both product and good weather were present to create the best possible atmosphere for consumers. I had originally run the idea past Oliver that I believed the company should lower the prices from what they were listed as on the residential order section of the website. My opinion was that I did not feel people would be willing to pay the prices. I felt that those prices made sense for direct sales to restaurants, but maybe not so much for the average consumer. As a compromise, smaller containers were ordered specifically for market use, as seen in the photo. For these, I halved the amount of greens that would normally go into their small sized containers, seen in the left hand side of the photo. Typically, the small size is around $14 and the large container, not pictured, is about double that in price, give or
take. I made the assumption that I was going to go out for the afternoon and make maybe a handful of sales. I took out two large containers of pea tendril sprouts and I was planning on having to bring both back at the end of the market. Despite the fact that food in the city tends to be more expensive, I was very skeptical that a large pea tendril for $28 would do anything besides scare customers away. I was, however, proven to be quite wrong due to the success of that day. In regards to the expensive tendrils, I had a woman come up to the stand, see the container of them and exclaim that she loves this type of pea sprout and can never find them anywhere. She proceeded to pay the price that I previously deemed outrageous for your average passer-by in my head. I was so surprised that she did not even stop to consider the price. She just willingly handed me the money in cash. That is the lesson I took away from that day. No matter what the price tends to be, if it isn't completely unreasonable, a customer will pay it if the product is difficult to find. In addition to the large pea, we almost sold out of product completely. For those who stopped but were not knowledgeable on microgreens, the price was too high for just a buy-microgreens-on-a-whim type of customer. Others who came seeking out our product, the price did not seem to be any form of a problem. I guess I was thinking Oliver wanted to target those who were looking to try out microgreens, when in reality I believe he was planning on targeting consumers who know about the product and are interesting in switching to his brand.