Friday, November 30, 2012

Online store almost ready ... volunteers?


The new Little Sprouts online store is almost ready!  We are very excited to change to this method of order tracking and management... making your shopping and our order filling more efficient and less time consuming.
There are some differences to note.
1. Subscriptions.... for any item that you'd like to have a "standing order" or a "regular order"... we offer the notion of subscriptions. You can subscribe to a dozen eggs, a half gallon of milk, quart of yogurt, quart of kombucha, etc.  You do this once on the website and it lasts forever so you don't have to go back each month and reorder. The subscription will be delivered every delivery automatically.
2. Automatic assignment to routes. When you sign up on the store as a customer... you pick which delivery method you prefer... by choosing your town . From that the system automatically assigns you to the proper delivery route and schedule. You can even choose farm pickup if outside the delivery area... or pickup at one of our drop points. Even out of state shipping is an option now!
3. Know what's available instantly. The store will track how much of each item is available and remove the items for sale as soon as we run out. So you know if the item is there..  you can order it and expect delivery. If the item isn't there... we are sold out. No more emails at the last minute saying we are sold out!
4. Automatic payments! We are setting up automatic checking account debits as an option. With this you can pay for subscriptions automatically with a online check on the day of delivery without doing anything further. The system automatically transfers the proper amount on the day of delivery. It even tracks additional items ordered and pays for them the same way. No more dealing with cash or checks writing! This is of course only an option. If you prefer to pay on delivery that's fine too.
5. Invoices. You will automatically receive an email invoice for each order showing exactly what was ordered and what it costs.
One of the most valuable benefits to us... quite frankly ... is this will free up a lot of time! All of the above and more is automatic where today it is a manual, time consuming process. This gives us more time to do what we need and desire to do.... create great food!
Right now we are looking for volunteers to test out the store. We need a few people in each area for an initial test run to work the bugs out. If you'd like to help out.... please keep in mind this is new... expect problems! We appreciate your time in helping us perfect this system before releasing it to the larger group.

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