Self-service egg sales or not, how do you handle it?

[Chick_a_dee]

Lucky you! The most anyone around here can get for eggs is $2.25 for organic. I charge $2 for free range.

There are lots of veggie stands that rely on the honor system because farmers just don't have the time to hang around at them.

 

[Nemo]

We have self-serve, but only for our friends. We don't advertise, and don't sell to the general public.

I have a small fridge in the kennel-coop, a 20x30 insulated, metal, garage package with running water and electricity. The woman who owned the house before us ran a dog kennel and grooming service. We don't run the natural gas furnace, but do have a couple heat lamps for if it gets really cold out.

I just have a small coffee can sitting in the cabinet next to the fridge. I keep about five bucks in it to make change, and haven't had any trouble with it.

My wife's co-workers kind of talked her into getting the chickens. They would talk about how great it would be to have fresh eggs, and how we had the perfect place for them. So, we started a little co-op... We said we'd only do it if they were willing to take care of them the few times a year we go out-of-town to visit family.

 

[risurocket]

Quote:
Nope, we live on the outskirts of a subdivision within city limits. I forgot to mention that my landlord does self serve produce sales on a cart out in the front yard, so we had a relatively built in customer base. We have regulars. New customers tend to call and leave a message on the "egg line" or else our regulars explain to their friends how it works. We get 4.50 a dozen. 4.00 a dozen with returned cartons.

 

[DenverChickens]

Thanks for all your great replies. A couple questions:

A couple of you mentioned you now "take orders". I'm a newbie, and I don't understand how that works. Does someone call you and say they want a dozen eggs, and arrange a time for pickup? If you have more orders than eggs, do you just keep a list and whoever comes up next on the list gets a call that their eggs are ready?

I don't want to schedule with people for egg pickup times. Everyone who will be buying eggs from me is either a friend/great neighbor or both, and I think it may be easier to be self-serve. Although I live in the city, I'm not too worried about the theft factor and I'm not advertising the eggs for sale in my yard - I'm hoping my eggs will sell on "word of mouth". There still aren't too many of us here in Denver selling fresh eggs.

I hope to print up a little "How to buy your local organic eggs" card and give them out to those folks I've invited to buy eggs from me. I only have 8 hens, so I don't need too many customers to sell out of eggs, I hope.

Rather than put a sign up in the yard saying the availability, (which may attract theft?), maybe I could instead have an "egg line" where people could call my cell phone and the message would indicate availability. Then if they don't live on my block, they don't have to make the drive if I'm out.

I was thinking of a money box with a small padlock, and maybe bolting it down, so it would be difficult for someone to walk away with it.

Thanks for all your great ideas - I hope to hear even more!

 

[risurocket]

All of your ideas are things that we are doing with our self serve egg biz or things we have tried and just customized to fit our situation so that it works. I think you've got it and if you only are selling to friends and neighbors, then word of mouth will work well. We only have the road sign and word of mouth ourselves, and we have 44 chickens.

It's nice to have the self serve because you don't have to worry about the phone, or being at home to answer the doorbell. And our customers have complimented us on the service because they don't worry about their eggs sitting out on the steps or something, and they can just come at their convenience. That said, we do have hours so that we aren't getting people coming at all hours of the night digging around in our foyer.

Good luck, I think you're on the right track.

 

[sparkles2307]

A lady at our church used to DELIVER eggs on her egg route each week... Um sorry but if they want my eggs that badly they can come to my house. Unless I am bringing them to my office for coworkers I will NOT be delivering squat.

 

[DenverChickens]

Wow! Egg delivery! That's service!

So many great ideas. I like the idea of having hours so that I don't get scared by strange noises in the middle of the night (thinking there's a fox or coyote after my chickens) only to find a neighbor picking up eggs late Friday night for Saturday morning breakfast!

I think I'll use a cooler with a frozen milk jug inside that I change daily. I wonder if I'll have to change my setup in the winter during freezing temperatures... I have an insulated garage, and although it gets cold, it doesn't seem to freeze too often in there, so maybe that's where the eggs will be in the winter (I'm hoping I do get a few in the winter, but I'm new to this so maybe I might be overly optimistic).

We'll see if everyone pays while on the honor system. I tend to think the best of people until they prove otherwise, which, fortunately, happens quite rarely! And I love the fact that people can come anytime to get eggs, and that they are first come - first served.

Thank you everyone for your ideas.

 

[Chick_a_dee]

We do egg delivery for our immediate neighbours (anyone on the street, there is 17 houses, and the road is about 7km long). In the summer we bike to the houses, and we "go out of season" in the winter, where the girls get a break so as to not stress their systems.

 

[briesberrypatch]

Quote:
I had a list of customers who bought a dozen eggs every week. I started out collecting money each week, but then I switched to having them pay a month at a time. (Makes it easier.) I did delivery one evening a week, between 7 and 8 pm, which was really appealing to my customers. Besides the convenience for them, there is kind of a nostalgic, old-fashioned appeal to it, I think, and that helped to set me apart. But I live in a very small town and everyone lived in a pretty small area so there wasn't a lot of driving around - it made it easier for me to manage deliveries.

I had arrangements with some customers that if they weren't home they would leave a cooler outside or they had a designated place in their house for me to leave the eggs and they left their door unlocked so I could get in.

The great thing about taking orders is that you know your eggs are going to be sold every week. It's reliable income, and I really liked getting to know my customers, too.

I think I started at $4/dozen, but I had to raise my price as the cost of feed and gasoline went up. $5/dz was about 18 months ago, when feed prices were so high. At $2.50/dozen I would be losing a lot of money - organic feed is expensive! But many residents here place a high value on locally-produced, organic food, so I have an excellent market.

Also it seems that my eggs were the best anyone could get, even with all the organic competition I had, and my customers raved about them to all their friends. A local restaurant inquired about me supplying their eggs, but I couldn't have kept up with that kind of demand. The organic farmer who I bought my feed from was selling his eggs at our farmers' market for $3.50/dozen at the time, I think, but my customers willingly passed up those eggs to pay $5 for mine.

If I were to start selling eggs again, I probably wouldn't do deliveries. I would probably set it up along the lines of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) model, with a set day and time frame for people to pick up their eggs on-farm. For example, Wednesdays 6 PM-8 PM. That way everyone is coming at the same time, so I don't have to hang around the house all the time, but I still have the steady business and never having to deal with extra eggs. And I don't have to do deliveries.

 

[CHIC]

WOW! what great ideas, I hadn't really even thought further than putting a sign at the road!