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I personally have been trying to find alternatives to Amazon, where I can better support small businesses. Etsy has been a huge inspiration for me. But even Etsy has been overrun by mass produced products. What makes my website different is that someone has to operate an actual farmers market in order to sell on it. Because you can shop nationwide on the website, the farmers market might not be near you, personally. But it is still a farmers market, which adds credibility.

I also have been trying to go to more farmers markets. When I search for farmers markets near me on Google Maps, I've always wished that I could see more information about the individual vendor stores. This website should help with that.

The website almost has two functions. The first is to help you find the vendors at farmers markets in your local vicinity. Google Maps shows local farmers markets. But it doesn't show the specific farmer market stores (you just see the overall farmers market). This website shows personalized information about the individual stores, like the name, description, and products. It also shows specific ratings and reviews for the particular store.

The other function is that it allows you to order products from farmers market all across the US. In this way, it is a bit like Etsy. But with added protection against things like dropshipping.

We built our website on Lovable. The biggest challenge I can think of is making the website worthwhile for farmers markets vendors to join. My first draft of the website was a functional, working product. But it just wasn't appealing to farmers markets sellers, because it was too complicated to join.

I learned to ask for feedback right away, from the people I want on my website. I went to farmers markets, and collect contact information from the sellers on there. I worked with their advice, criticism, and feedback, to make the website the most user friendly for them. I learned that it is so important to make websites easy and straightforward to join. This seems to matter much more than flashy aesthetics.

I see the biggest accomplishment of my website as giving farmers markets sellers a larger platform. As someone who designs websites, I understand that websites can very often be expensive and difficult to maintain. It can also be quite expensive and difficult to advertise and promote them.

My website will help with this, because a single website that lists many farmers market sellers creates a network effect. Each seller benefits from the site’s collective SEO authority, backlinks, and visitor traffic. Instead of each small seller trying to rank on Google separately, they share domain strength. Small, independent sites rarely have the SEO budget or content frequency to compete.

The vendors on my website can always link their personal website in their profile. But they don't even have to go through the trouble of setting up their own website. The can just use my website to inform, sell, and advertise.

I feel like my next steps are recruiting more farmers markets, and advertising my site to more people. With more sellers, buyers, and visitors, I will have more feedback. And I will use it to perfect my website.

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