Increasing purchases at farmers markets using point‐of‐sale scanner data

Obviously they're handling more product at each step, but there are so many more steps and so many more miles, I could see it swinging either way.

My favorite thing about a farmer's market is that I'm talking to people with direct knowledge of the product and its production conditions. I can ask if the recent weather affected it, or what the outlook is like for the rest of the season, and usually get an intelligent answer. If something's advertised as organic or pesticide-free or whatever, I can get specifics about exactly what that means as it applies to this precise crop, not just a set of certification criteria that cover a whole industry.

And if there are ways to preserve that directness while making the market more efficient to get more products to more consumers without compromising the things that make it special, I think that's absolutely worth looking into.

This is fascinating though, because our local farmers' market (Alemany in San Francisco) has like, 3 time more choices than any single grocery store. There's clearly different stalls marketed at different social-economical groups too, from the crunchy super-organic store to the asian grandma favorite stall and everything in between.

I went to the farmers market on a weekly basis. I prefer the farmers market because unlike the supermarkets, the produce is fresher, it is more local, it is much cheaper, and I get to know who produces the food that I eat. I care about organic food, and unless I went to the farmer's market that was explicitly for organic food (though less cheap), talking to the farmers would help me understand how they farm and all the nuance around it.

Anyhow, this is obviously not more efficient than a trip to the supermarket: it takes more time and I had to go at a specific time and location. However, I don't go to the farmers market in pursuit of efficiency. I do so because I want to support small farmers in my area, I want to eat fresher, and I cherish a tighter relationship with the food that I eat and the people who produce it.

I do understand your point of view on efficiency is meant as a broader observation, but I find that it misses the points of farmers markets that are at odds with the pursuit of efficiency: localism, conviviality, and, give or take, qualities about the food itself.

Some would see it as saving energy, money and time because the product comes direct from the farm to the town, and you are cutting out all the middlemen (who's time you pay for and who want a profit margin), warehouses (who suck energy), long supply routes (using energy), etc.

Oddly in poorer countries, farmers markets are the cheap place to get produce, and you will pay a premium to buy from a supermarket, whereas in rich countries that trend is reversed.

If it went to a grocery store, it would go from the farm to a central location (which is who knows how many hundreds of km away), to some distribution center (again, who knows how far away), to then go to a local supermarket. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s less efficient than shipping it to a local market!

Aside from that, where do the products in a local supermarkt come from? Depending on your country, I’d be surprised if those bananas didn’t arrive on some freight ship. Talk about inefficiency! In my case, even tomatoes are often from a different country and then we export our own tomatoes to other countries too. It’s crazy.

Next to that, I’m not sure about the other points. At least in my country it’s cheaper (everything is in season), fresher and simply way better.

Regarding choice, it depends. I won’t find any locally grown bananas. But I will have more choice in vegetables and fruits that actually grow in my area. Personally I like that, since I care more about efficient and sustainable produce than shipping something halfway across the world for my pleasure.

That's a factor, but also the food is better. I eat a lot of eggs for example; I pay a bit more than I would in the store for a flat (30x) at the farmer's market because they're not washed or refrigerated. They keep longer and (imho) taste and cook better.

I agree with you about recoiling from this. I'm very interested in economics and have noted how the strategies they discuss drive or lose sales (product mix etc.), but the inevitable conclusion of this approach is to establish your own supermarket and drive everyone else out of business. I'm willing to pay more in time and convenience for a more interesting food buying experience and the ability to talk directly with food producers.

We go because the food is better, fresher, and often it has things you won't find in a supermarket.

the 'lower customer densities' twist is interesting. I wonder what creates that situation. Maybe people want to rush their purchases when in a crowd?

Man are researchers really this naive? These are small businesses, large cash transactions aren't gonna be recorded on Square. duh

Knowing a thing or two about the business side of farmers markets(having seen it from the farmer's side), I would expect that the correlation with earlier sale hours is related to those merchants having agreements with local restaurants/grocers or even other vendors at the farmers market to buy bulk quantities. You sell a good portion of your crops directly to a bulk reseller/food maker who pays you in credit. You record that in Square because it's your only CC transaction vendor.

Some of the P values in the paper are significant at levels that would survive almost any amount of multiple testing correction. E.g., in Table 3, the P value for DairyCheese is P=1.3E-139.

While I agree that the "strength" of the P value is not the thing of interest (which is, generally, the magnitude of the effect), the probability that you'd see results like this if there was no relationship between transaction size and the dairy category is ~0.