FarMart

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  Home Page

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  Marketplace

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  Social Media

Problem:

Farmers markets are a great option for picking up one or two fresh or locally sourced items, but when was the last time you thought about going to a local farmers market instead of a grocery store? Due to farmers markets having low inventory/ limited amount of produce consumers usually go to grocery stores. Consumers have no way of knowing what a farmers market has to offer due to their unpredictability. By relying on farmers markets, farmers are having trouble showcasing their inventory. Also as the world becomes more reliant on technology customers are craving a digital experience that local farmers markets don't offer.

Solution:

FarMart is an online social media application for farmers and consumers of fresh produce. To further connect farmers, consumers and allow family farms to better showcase inventory, we have created a website that allows consumers to see the inventory of local Farmers Markets. FarmMart improves the buying experience, saving customers time and energy when looking for specific produce. In addition to showcasing inventory, we have also made a social media site to improve the relationship between farmers and the community. FarMart allows consumers to shop at local farmers markets without the uncertainty, along with farmers being able to showcase their products, and lastly allowing a digital connection.

Market Size:

Positioning this as a marketing solution for Indiana farmers, the TAM is $322M marketing dollars available. This was calculated from 94,000 farms, 7-10% revenue spent on marketing, 4.6B exported in Indiana.

Competition:

Farmers Markets

Business Model:

High quality data will be collected from transactions allowing digital tools, focused on increasing sales, to be created that can be sold to farmers. Our lean operation using existing supply chains lowers our operational cost. Our business model is created around high margins and greater access to capital markets. With no initial charge to join our ecosystem an early bird incentive will be created for farmers to build a strong brand on the platform to gain trust from consumers.

Marketing and Sales:

During the first phase (year 1-5) of marking and sales, we’ll focus on customer acquisition through partnerships and offline marketing. A sales team of interns from agriculture based majors will reach out to local farmers and build relationships with farmers markets. Currently we are focused on Purdue University's agriculture programs to build a competitive internship program. The strong local talent pool of candidates will keep operations in Indiana as we scale into other markets in the region. This proof of concept will start in Indiana and follow leading the country in agriculture development and expand to other States to increase revenue.

Progress to Date:

The platform is designed on react and stored at https://github.com/benbam789/Techpoin on GitHub to have the capabilities to scale up and host visitors interested in offerings from all 94,000 farms in Indiana. Our team created a list of tools that we would need for the project. Then created prototypes and ran testing to create the best user experience possible. Currently plans are in the design and development stage to host the platform on AWS. Our data storage strategy will also include AWS data warehousing solutions with agile practices for improved time to market.

Future Milestones:

The Team:

Iqra Syed - Iqra is an Informatics major with a specialization in business at IUPUI. She plans to pursue a job in the IT field along the lines of a Business Analyst or a Project Manager. She also wants to pursue a career in Scum and will be working on that certification in the next couple years.

Ben Bamidele– Ben is pursuing an Intelligent Systems Engineering major with a concentration in Computer Engineering at Indiana University-Bloomington. He has two years of experience in programming primarily C and Python. Learned proficiency with JavaScript and CSS to utilize React JS for the project. He plans to pursue a career in the tech field as a software developer or as a computer engineer.

William McAuley - Project Manager: William is an experienced team leader and data analytics student at the Byrum School of Business at Marian University. His experience as a project manager for the SOS project in 2020 and 2021, as well as leading the student consulting engagement at Marian’s A Team. Skilled in change management, digital technology and big data consulting. He will be graduating in May 2022.

Built With

• css
• react