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Here are some frequently asked questions:
- How do I "Create an Account?"
- Are there membership fees?
- How do I order?
- When, Where, and How do I pay ?
- Am I obligated to order a certain product or a certain amount?
- How Do I See My Favorite Grower's Products and Info on the Market Page?
- I just paid through PayPal...Why Isn't it Showing Up?
- How Do I Check My Payment History?
- When and Where do I pick up my order?
- What if I am not able to pick up orders?
- What if the pick-up point or the day and time isn't good for me?
- How Do I Check My Past Orders?
- Why Support Locally Grown?
- How Do I Get Off Your Email List?
- What if something is missing from my order?
- What Does "Handling Fee" cover?
- How Can I Sell Through Upstate Locally Grown?
- Who Grows My Food?
- What are the Advantages of This Locally Grown.net market?
And here are some answers:
How do I "Create an Account?"
Go to the log in page, fill out the information under “Let’s Get Started”(no financial info needed). You will then be eligible to receive our newsletter and availability email, news of classes and events, and info on topics relative to gardernin/farmiong, sustainability, homesteading, foraging, and our earth.
Are there membership fees?
To help us provide farm tours, educational programs, hosting the site, and to help us with our overhead costs, a small annual fee, less than a dollar a week, ($50.00 per household annually) is suggested, but not required at this time.
How do I order?
A list of available products is sent to all of our registered customers by e-mail. Orders can be placed here on our website on the market page. The shopping cart is on the top left. When finished with your order, click on “check out”. That will bring you to the check out page to complete your order. It is here that you write notes about special instructions. To send a note to the grower, write under the product. To send a note to just the market managers, write in the box on your lower left.
- You must receive an email from Upstate Locally Grown listing your order. If you don’t receive that email, your items are still in your shopping cart and invisible to us. In that case, go back to the Market and you should see your shopping cart.
When, Where, and How do I pay ?
We have teamed up with PayPal in order to keep more accurate records of your accounts. The system does keep track of customer balances, so it is possible to allow customers to conveniently pay as much as they want in advance;(We suggest starting at $100.00) and then “draw down” on their balance. This is easy to do. You may want to use the “Donate” button and it will take you to Paypal where you may put in as much as you want. If the Paypal account you are using is under a different name than your account, please include a note so we know whose account it needs to be deposited in. As you order, the system will draw it down automatically, or, in the case of a deleted item, refund it to your account.
Customer orders can be easily adjusted after the fact through the website to account for rejections, shortages, credits, etc.
Feel free to send reminder notes if missing a product or needing adjustments.
Am I obligated to order a certain product or a certain amount?
No. You may customize your order to suit your family’s unique and individual needs. While we do have some CSA pre-packed baskets available from some of our growers, we also have over 400 products for you to choose anytime you like.
How Do I See My Favorite Grower's Products and Info on the Market Page?
To see a specific grower’s/vendor’s products only, go to the market page, bottom left corner…check “Show a specific grower” And check the growers you want to see. There is a choice to “inverse choices”. This will either remove all checks or put them back.
Click on See specific Grower and his products will show on the market. Click on the grower’s name and you will be taken to their info page on our site. Use your computer’s “back” button to return.
I just paid through PayPal...Why Isn't it Showing Up?
All Paypal credits are manually credited to accounts, so it may take up to a few days for the payment to show. If you have received conformation from Paypal, then the money has come through to us. Please feel free to place an order.
How Do I Check My Payment History?
Go to Your Account, click on “See My Account History.” It will have a record of recent purchases and all credits/ debits to your account.
When and Where do I pick up my order?
Please bring reusable bags or coolers with freezer packs, where needed, to your selected pick up site. Your products have been kept at the appropriate temperature prior to pick-up.
To add funds to your account, click on the Donate button.
What if I am not able to pick up orders?
If it is not possible for someone to pick up your order at the designated time and place, you may contact the drop-off location. They may be able to store your items longer, but it will be up to their discretion.
Since the growers select your products especially for you, and since we pay the grower for your order before you pick-up, you will be held responsible to pay for your order.
What if the pick-up point or the day and time isn't good for me?
You may send a friend or relative to pick up your order with no advance notice at any time.
If you have suggestions of additional drop-off locations, I am always open to new ides!
How Do I Check My Past Orders?
To check on what you have ordered in the past, or what you have been charged for, Click on “See order History” on the Market Page.
If you have a question that you can’t find the answer to, please email me @ putneyfarm@aol.com to resolve any issues. The system is designed to enable us to adjust your account in case of error.
If in doubt, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Donna
Why Support Locally Grown?
Enhance your local economy: By purchasing produce and other items from local growers you are providing stability to your local economy through the support of local businesses.
Save natural resources: Buying locally makes you an invaluable link in the process of saving resources such as fossil fuels and packaging materials. Also, we are right here in your community so the expense of transportation and delivery is kept to a minimum.
Provide learning opportunities: Locally Grown supporters provide member growers the means to help educate our community about the importance of sustainable agriculture.
Supporting a way of life: The number of small farms in the United States has decreased dramatically in the last decade. Please help us preserve an honest and worthy means of making a living.
We believe that small, diverse, family-owned farms contribute to society’s overall health.
How Do I Get Off Your Email List?
We realize that you are bombarded with emails daily.
We hope that you want to stay with us forever, of course. But things change for everyone.
If you have created an account and later decide to remove yourself, You NOW HAVE SEVERAL OPTIONS: fROM “YOUR ACCOUNT” you may choose to remain an active account, but not receive the Harvest news and reminders. In that case, you might wish to use the new option of receiving an RSS feed or to donload the availability list yourself in PDF or other forms.
If you no longer wish to be an active account, (say, for instance that you are moving), then you may delete your account yourself from the same area on the Your Account page.
What if something is missing from my order?
Sometimes we miscalculate our harvest for the week, due to crop failure, weather, etc. In that case, we encourage the growers to delete the product from your order. If this happened, you would receive an email saying that the product had been deleted and the cost of the product automatically deducted from your account.
If we are missing a product after the invoices are already printed out, it is a simple matter of going back and removing the product from your order directly on the program. If you have already paid, this amount would be a credit, deducted from the next order’s charges. You are always welcome to send a reminder to correct your account balance.
If your product is backordered, there is a place on the market page to print an invoice for your missing item. You will find this at the top of the list on the left column on market page.
We like making you happy more than making money, so please let us know if we have missed something. (putneyfarm@aol.com)
What Does "Handling Fee" cover?
The handling fee covers charges to us for processing your payments, plus packing and delivering to the regular drop-off point. In addition, if there are any taxes involved, this is where we cover those.
We try to keep your costs down, while at the same time providing a personal shopping service to you. The service includes picking up your orders from the growers, sorting, packing, and keeping your foods cooled and fresh for delivery to your pick up point.
There is no middle man, no storage, no shipping.
How Can I Sell Through Upstate Locally Grown?
Growers,you must be using sustainable methods. We pledge to keep our products free from chemicals, antibiotics, or chemical horomones. Plant-based products are acceptable, as are organic pesticides and herbicides.
Upstate Locally Grown is here to make it easier to market your products while giving most of your time to what you love best: producing!
We may be an answer for your time constraints for marketing:
When people come to our site looking for sustainable foods, you may want to be listed here.
The annual fee is $50.00 for growers, which you pay either through your sales, or through Pay Pal. (Please note that this is for your grower’s fee.) To get started, enter your contact info in “my account”, indicate that you would like to be a grower and contact us for approval and activation. Thanks, and welcome aboard!
You may choose to use Upstate Locally Grown for your only website. You can have your own page plus list your products on the market page, complete with descriptions and prices.
We have over 900 regular subscribers to our availability newsletter, we have been written up in the Greenville News, as well as in blogs. We are listed in Sustainable Greenville, an on-line listing of “Green” businesses, Local Harvest, a nationwide lister of sustainable growers, and many others. We are personally known to hundreds more people due to our participation in the Greenville Downtown Saturday Market, by selling at Whole Foods Market, as well as by supplying chefs around the area.
We feel that we can help each other in raising the awareness of the public to the benefits of purchasing from small family farms homesteads and artisans. Each of our grower friends who join us pledge to bring to our members and to each other the freshest, most healthy, most delicious foods available! Our hens are free to eat grass and insects, without cages, on organic soil, our meat animals range on pastures, our goat milk products are made on the farm, our baked goods are made from fresh, whole grains, without white sugar nor preservatives; milled on site as we bake them, our veggies and meat are raised without chemicals or antibiotics, and our growers are very careful to rebuild the tilth of the land: therefore, are sustainable. Our manufactured or processed products have healthy ingredients and are made and packaged in accordance to state and DEHEC standards. In any case where conventional ingredients must be used, due to unavailability of organic, we pledge to let our shoppers know in writing, up front, in the information area of the product. If you agree to the above policies, Then we would like for you to join us. Thanks!
Donna Putney
Market Manager
putneyfarm@aol.com
864 369 7907 (H) (864)622-9332 (cell and text)
You may pay your $50.00 registration fee through Pay Pal, if you wish.
Who Grows My Food?
Who grows your food?
(See “Our Growers” section for detailed descriptions)
Our growers and producers are committed to a sustainable way of life." We are a part of the movement to bring real, fresh, and health-giving food back to your table. You will be amazed at the difference in taste that “fresh” makes.
Upstate residents grow your food. We personally know each grower and his growing methods.
produce grown naturally without harmful pesticides.
state inspected naturally pasture raised meats of all kinds.
truly free ranged eggs.
natural freshly milled baked goods.
artisan crafts.
Health-promoting conventional products, such as Gluten-free and Low fat items may be offered if identified as conventional. No preservatives are allowed.
We are always looking for more passionate producers to join us!
What are the Advantages of This Locally Grown.net market?
The produce is local to the market.
The growers set their own prices.
The system is meant to emulate many aspects of a traditional “booths and tables” farmers’ market. The customers are buying directly from the grower, at prices set by the grower. The grower describes what is available, supplies photos of the items, and sets the purchase price.
The customer has choices.
Just like at a traditional farmers’ market, the customer can browse everything that is available from all of the different growers. The customer can choose exactly what to buy, how much to buy, and from what grower to buy.
The customer has time to decide.
Unlike a traditional market that may be only open for a couple hours (with all the good stuff gone soon after opening), LocallyGrown.net markets are usually open for business for two days—long enough to fully browse the site and plan menus for the week.
Availability is flexible.
The growers estimate how much of each item that will be able to harvest a week ahead of time. This takes both skill and practice. Even so, unpredictable factors—such as whether or not it is sunny on a Wednesday morning—can make the difference between having a bumper crop or a very small harvest. So, the site will allow customers to keep on ordering an item even if sales have passed the estimated availability. The item might not be there when the order is put together, but then again, it just might be.
The produce is harvested to order.
After the ordering window has closed, the growers are notified of all of their orders for the week. They usually have a day or so to go out and harvest exactly what was ordered, package it, and deliver to the pick-up site. The produce is not coming off from a shelf somewhere, but is coming straight from the field to the customer. Of course, this doesn’t apply for some items. Garlic, for example, is often cured for a while before sale. Jams and other preserves may be made in batches. Honey is processed seasonally and then stored. Soap is made in batches. You get the idea, but most things will indeed be harvested to order.
Payment is taken when the orders are picked up.
Most markets will have a set time and location for customers to pick up their orders. Payment is not made when the order is placed through the website but is instead made in person when the order is picked up. This is because adjusting the amount owed for an order will be a common occurrence. Maybe something ran short due to bad weather, or maybe there were extra items available on the table when the customer arrived, or maybe the grower decided to adjust the price down at the last minute to account for an imperfection. In any case, it is much easier to do this in person rather than going back and trying to issue credits and adjustments through your credit card processor.
The system does keep track of customer balances, so it is possible to allow customers to conveniently pay as much as they want in advance and then “draw down” on their balance.
One aspect to this, however, is that if a customer places an order but for whatever reason does not arrive to pick it up, the customer is still responsible for paying for that order. Since everything is harvested to order, the growers still had to work to put the order together, and should therefor still get paid for that effort.
