I’ve always had a deep affection for local farmers markets. For the past seven years, I’ve spent nearly every Saturday morning perusing mine. As an entrepreneur, I also view the experience as a refresher course on point of purchase marketing and consumer etiquette. Fortunately, I live in one of the sunniest places on the planet (Southern California), making it possible to people and produce watch 51 weeks a year (off Christmas week).
While the long growing seasons provide ample fruits and vegetables, our market also offers plenty of crafts and activities to keep every generation in the family happy. There’s a miniature train ride, popsicles, kettle corn, and balloon animals for the kids. Handmade aprons, jewelry, tamales, and a plethora of artisanal culinary delights for the adults.
Over the years, I’ve gotten to know every farmer that my family purchases from and many of the customers as well. We’ve developed a level of familiarity that when we skip a week, our absence is often asked about. To have a mutually beneficial shopping relationship with pleasant people is a breath of fresh air in today’s retail environment where customer service has been forgotten.
But just like produce, a few bad apples can spoil an entire shopping experience. Today, I saw the ultimate farmers market bad apple.
No, I’m not referring to the crowd of foodies taking up half a stall debating which type of radish tastes the most tart, or the young lady who scarfed down an entire plate of samples, only to scurry away when the farmer turned around to help another customer, or the woman pushing a cart that took up 99% of the aisle. We all encounter these types of behaviors on a regular basis. Most only deserve a shrug and a nod to human idiosyncrasies.
I’m writing about the gentleman who didn’t correct the arithmetic mistake made on his purchase of: one bag of green beans, two heads of kale, three avocados, and two bunches of carrots. The twinkle in his eye, his body language, and the single dollar he put back into his pocket told me he definitely knew his total was seventeen, not the sixteen dollars he was charged.
One dollar.
These particular farmers (husband, wife, and daughter) wake up at 5:00 a.m. on Saturday so they can finish harvesting and load their truck. They drive over an hour to our neighborhood, where they will spend the next five hours baking in the sun. They deliver some of the least expensive organic food to their customers before driving home and repackaging their unsold produce. Their fifteen hour day is repeated six days a week, as they attend markets throughout Orange and LA counties.
Not wanting to cause a scene, but wanting to keep my farmers market karma intact, I paid for my veggies, and handed Maria an extra two dollars. “I’ll pick up another head of lettuce on my way out,” I said.
Oops, I forgot the lettuce.
Mary and her family see close to a thousand customers a day. Yes, they’re only performing basic math, but even simple subtraction gets difficult when you’re tired and have several customers simultaneously pulling at you.
I try to be a good customer; I don’t molest each piece of fruit before putting it back. I’m efficient and courteous while filling my bags. But, I often rely on their arithmetic. I tell them what I bought, and they tell me how much I owe them. It’s simple laziness on my part. Next week, I’ll give them the purchase total right after telling them what I bought. It’s a small change that will probably go unnoticed. But, if it takes just a small burden off of people who do so much for me and my family, then bring on the addition and subtraction.
Human contact has been removed from many of our economic transactions these days. But it’s the personal relationship element, the sense of doing what’s right for your customer and fellow man, that allows lifestyle businesses to remain successful, and for growth companies to scale while remaining true to their core. It’s also what keeps people from being jerks at your local farmers market.