Eggs are just not selling anymore **Update page 4**

[gogoalie]

Nurse nettie...the customers you have now, you have to hang on to, & do so by bending over backwards, & uncharacteristically niceness...if they bring you new customers, give the referee's a free 1/2 doz eggs...this way, you can start a "chain reaction" & then show how your product is FAR supierior to others, likewise, undercutting your competition ALWAYS wins customer, along with treating your customers speical. Give your customers what they can't get at your neighbors, or some other town...clean fresh eggs, uncomperable customer service, & a PRICE that can't be beat...three great ways to beat your competition...goodluck...Nothing like WORD O' Mouth, for free marketing...

 

[Camelot Farms]

Dont forget, you can freeze them for next winter!

 

[pdsavage]

You could allways post em for free on http://www.freecycle.org/

 

[dntd]

why not learn how to pickle eggs for a store, I heard eggs pickled with beets are supposed to be fancy.

 

[arabianequine]

I don't think anything is selling anymore.

 

[NurseNettie]

OK, to answer the last few posts.

I do pickle eggs, and we have a few "seasonal" customers who buy them. One is a sportsman from Canada who comes to fish or hunt during those seasons. He's brought some friends now and then, but we haven't seen him yet this year. Another guy works with my husband, and he does hiking tours of the mountains-- they haven't started yet. There are 2 stores within any reasonable distance of me ( that isn't a commercial grocery store). Each already has a pickled egg maker! Both are semi-commercial,which I am not.

I've got tons of frozen eggs... Many are LAST YEARS that we haven't used, because we have too many, LOL.

My current customers at work, I'm not worried about. There just aren't that many, because it's a small area. There are also 2 other folks I work with who have hens. Both are "secretly" (why, I dont know...) selling eggs for $1 a dozen to some of the folks that used to buy from me, and one is giving them away because she doesn't believe in selling to friends. *sigh* So, the occasional work customer ( I've got 3 or 4 regular ones at work) is now getting free or nearly free eggs from others.
My customers that come by the house-- they're neighbors, but nobody I know other than by first name, and have never seen outside my own house. Most are retired, or living on a fixed income. That said, I'm out in the country. I've been here 2 years. These folks have been here forever. They don't seem to care if there's an occasional dirty egg, or a crack, or whatever. They dont' care if they have to trudge through the dooryard in the mud to come to get eggs-- they seem of the type to want a bargain- and if they have to go up the road 5 miles for it- they do.

Everyone's ideas are great- I just think I need to give it up for awhile. Keep a small flock, 1 rooster in case I want to expand later. We used to sell our eggs for $2.00 a dozen. Everyone got a card with our name and phone number, and I always told them--- if you have any problems, let me know- I'll get you new eggs, or your money back. Never heard a complaint from anyone--- even the folks at work who I know would say something if I let dirty eggs slip through. I meticulously clean the eggs, sell only the largest ones (we keep the smaller ones to pickle), and although we re-use cartons-- never never never a dirty one. We dropped our price to 1:50 over the winter, and weren't able to go back up, since the new folks up the road are selling for 1.50 and 1.60. I suppose I could go to 1.25 for a week or 2 and see if we get more people, but to me, that's so low, I dont' think we can cover anything. But, that might be the way to go. Drop the prices while trying to sell off some of the hens ( which people don't want to buy, even though my friend and I who do the chicken swaps have gotten many requests for them--- most people are hoping to get free hens of laying age.. not sure why)


The last post also mentioned that nothing is selling-- and I think that's true, also. The economy is very tight, nobody is spending any money they dont' have to. The grocery store has 99cent eggs every few weeks, and people buy them like crazy. And these are "farm" folks who know the difference.

I'm going to go hold my breath and hope something happens soon

 

[Marie1234]

I am getting good prices for my 1year old hens right now. Just something to keep in mind. A few years ago people didn't want to pay $3 for a hen and now I'm getting ten for brown egg layers and 20 for green. Most people are buying three at a time. I'm not talking about sq birds here...just ISA's and what I hatched from mixed breeds with a ee roo.
It could be that for a while raising them to point of lay and selling could be a better income generator.

 

[EweSheep]

Or that people are having backyard chickens of their own and does not need to buy eggs anymore LOL!

The stores around here are selling the eggs from 65 cents for medium up to $1.25 Large Dozen............who should I compete to if people are micromanaging their money to the penny.

 

[NurseNettie]

This, is exactly what my issue is, I think. Many more folks have their own chickens, so they dont need to buy,and they also sell their excess....

Who knows, this could be a good thing. Whittle down the flock, fewer to care for, can mean more time to do other things! ( like garden more, etc, maybe)

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[TennesseeTruly]

We live in a relatively poor community and I offer our extra eggs on Freecycle if I have extras at the end of the week. Someone locally had 400 extra eggs last week that posted on Craigslist. He needed to get rid of them ASAP. He told me that people snatched them up within 2 hours.

As much as I like making money from selling eggs, I know that there's always people in the community that can use them. We also use our eggs for bartering too, which helps.

I sell hatching eggs on Ebay. I don't always get the price I want but I have a choice...sell them at the price that they're selling at or feed them back to the chickens. Soooooo, I might only make $4 on 6+ eggs that I may have sold before for $18 but its $4 extra $ in my pocket.

Laurie