Cheapskate Rant

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

Someone donates eggs to the local food pantry and gets a receipt for "market price". If the market price in your area for farm-fresh eggs is $3/dz, I imagine you could get a receipt for that. In my area, I can prove I can sell them for $1.50, so I can only get a receipt for $1.50.

 

[harrisville chicken]

My wife told me about an article she just read about marketing. When the first breadmakers came out (you remember them, the little boxes you dumped ingredients in, plugged it in and voila, fresh baked bread in a few hours) the did not sell at all. They couldn't lower the price at all and still make money, no amount of advertising was helping move the products, so in a last ditch effort they hired a consulting company to help them. The recommendation came back was "build another breadmaker, but more expensive than the one that was not selling. Their reasoning? You have to give the people a less-expensive (aka cheaper) option. So they made a few more higher price models, put them on the market. The previously poor selling models then began selling like hotcakes.
So, my advice to you is. Set aside a few eggs at a much higher price, keeping your normal price and see if the fact that you now have eggs at a "less expensive" price will help them move.
Good luck.

 

[tazcat70]

It is crazy but I have found this to be true too, sometimes you have to raise the price to sell something.

I would change the sign to something other than farm fresh eggs. I am not sure what I would change it to, but something that says that there is more to a good egg than it just being an egg. That the chickens themselves are cherished, and that happy chickens make better eggs.

My neighbor pays me $3 a doz when I have them available. She offered me $5...I was giving them to her for free as a thank you for putting up with my roosters, but she insisted she pay.

 

[mypicklebird]

Marketing is involved to differentiate your eggs from the other eggs. You can find a niche to be in- cater to folk who want a better egg than the grocery egg. This could be healthy diet, free range/pasture fed/cruelty free ect, organic, whatever. Why are your eggs better than the ones down the street? If your community can afford higher priced farm fresh eggs- you need to help them understand WHY these are better than store bought. If your community cannot afford higher priced farm eggs, then you are better to cut down on the flock so you don't have excess to sell. Or as other folks suggested- just donate them somewhere that will appreciate them. If your eggs ARE better, you can also gift them to potential buyers- to get them interested. Low prices do undermine all the local egg sellers. I do not think it is possible for the average backyard farmer to sell eggs for 1$/dozen and buy enough food to feed the birds, let alone make a profit. Commercial places with specialty leghorns, that get new birds every year- can barely come close to that.
Location is also really helpful. I live smack in the middle of a suburban area that has lots of folks who are very interested in humane food and pursue the 'localvore' life. I sell eggs for 5$/dozen which is higher than most in this area. I don't have any problems selling them- my niche is pasture fed & humane eggs. People can see my birds from the road (60 some mixed breed- multiple colors) ranging on 2 acres of grass. They stop to ask about them- I have mixed ages- some quite old who aren't laying well, roosters out strutting, a few other poultry mixed in for interest. I talk to people about the difference in quality of life for a free ranging, bug & grass eating, dust bathing, sunshine bathing chicken- vs a caged in wire or packed in on dirt commercial operation. I talk to people about the difference between a day old egg (or even warm from the chicken) and a 2 week old egg from the store- for cooking and frying. I talk to them about the bright yellow/orange yolk packed with taste and nutrition from eating lots of grass & plants, vs the pale yellow yolk from the store. Most of these people are well aware of the unpleasant life of most factory animals- and are well aware of the chickens in battery cages/forced molt/short life of the average commercial bird. They are looking for a better product. Most of my customers are looking for a humane product first and foremost, but also they swear they can taste the difference as well- pasture fed is better.
So you need to differential yourself and your chickens from the others around, so you can sell eggs for higher- IF your goal is to make money or feed the flock from your sales- focus on your niche. If your community doesn't support this niche- you can try to educate them (or move!). If you want to have chickens for the sake of having them- then your goal would be better to offset the feed costs as best you can, but downsize to what you can afford to feed without the sales. Try not to undermine all of the local farmers by selling for less than it takes to produce the eggs. It is nice to be able to do both- and have a hobby that provides for its cost- but this is hard to do in some areas.
Sorry for the long post- hope something in there is helpful.

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

Hard to differentiate this egg from the egg right next to it that was laid by a sister hen in the same coop.

I think it works for bread-makers because they added features to the higher end model to make it "worth" more money than the lower end model. What features can you add to a carton of eggs to differentiate it?

The key here is whether the customer sees eggs as a commodity (one egg is like any other) or whether there can be a difference (I cannot believe the difference between farm-fresh eggs and store-stored eggs). If there is a difference, how much are they willing to pay for that difference?

I am not feeding organic grains, or flaxseed to produce extra omega3 in the eggs. So my differentiation can only be store-stored vs farm-fresh. If I was doing the other things and backing it up with nutrition tests done on my eggs, then maybe I could make some customers believe that my farm-fresh AND more nutritious and healty eggs were worth, say $5/dz. But I have to believe the size of the market would be quite small in my area. I probably would not sell enough eggs at the price to cover the additional costs of the tests.

The poor OP just wanted to rant, and I completely understand how frustrating it is when people see eggs as a commodity. You believe you are going to have a nice little side business, but you cannot sell eggs for enough to cover the feed.

I usually end up giving the first dz free. After that I don't need to do any convincing. I still cannot raise as many chickens as I would like because I have a relatively small market for eggs.

Are there any local restaurants that would like to buy your eggs? They could do the value-added part for you by advertising that their breakfast dishes are made with only nutritious farm-fresh eggs from happy, healthy, free-ranging hens.

 

[kelidei]

I don't know if this would work for you but it helped me a LOT when I first started selling my eggs--- I advertised that if you buy 5 dozen eggs you will get your sixth one for free. It got people to try them and get to really appreciate the difference from store bought eggs. I gave them a little card and marked off each dozen they bought. Also I give a fifty cent discount if they return their paper cartons. If I can use them another time I do... if they are too mangled to reuse I flatten them and run them through our shredder and--- voila! excellent nesting material for my girls, soft, absorbent and 100% biodegradable.

 

[Rusty Hills Farm]

Hard to differentiate this egg from the egg right next to it that was laid by a sister hen in the same coop. wink I think it works for bread-makers because they added features to the higher end model to make it "worth" more money than the lower end model. What features can you add to a carton of eggs to differentiate it?

Packaging comes to mind. Try those clear plastic cartons with the bright labels. Another might be to add a few EEs to the mix so you have a variety of egg colors--brown, white, green, blue, and possibly even a few olives--that way you are different from everyone around you.

HTH

Rusty​

 

[mypicklebird]

One other thought on differentiating eggs from down the street--- eye candy eggs. If you don't have different colors, get some! People love to see different colors in the carton. I always try to put white eggs next to Marans, blue/green, olive green, light brown all in the same box. Looks nice, even if they all taste the same.


oops I see Rusty just posted the same thing.

 

[horsejody]

When the girls started to slow down for winter, I needed to fill an order for my neighbor to take to two of her co-workers. I ran a little short so they each got 2 duck eggs in their dozen. The neighbor and I came up with a story. She told them the the duck eggs normally sold for a much higher price because they are bigger, taste richer and are great in casseroles and that, if they didn't want them, they could return them. She told them that they were getting a deal because they were getting them for the price of chicken eggs. It worked like a charm. I have a coworker that always has a duck egg in his order too. They are popular now, but I only have one duck.

 

[kelidei]

Quote:
That's funny--- but is soooo true!