Producer (Hub)

What is a Producer Hub?

A Producer Hub shop is a shop which is run by a producer and stocks produce from other producers. We class this model as both a 'producer' (because they raise. grow, bake etc) and as a 'hub' (because they are stocking items sourced from other producers, so play an aggregation role).

What does it do?

Offer more variety to your customers by stocking produce from others Producers selling direct can delight their customers by supplying a diversity of produce from other producers. Not only does this give customers access to a broader range of goodies, it can also grow your business. By collaborating with other producers you can also share the load of marketing, admin and distribution.

Collaborate with ease Abukem E-Market is designed to make it easy to network with others. Each producer can login and update their stock availability and prices as well as view orders and reports. And just because you are collaborating with others doesn't mean you can't also run your own individual shop.

Steps for setting up

Background Producer Hub shops will usually be administered by a central producer who may have operated their own individual Producer Shop on the Abukem previously, and then decided to expand their offering by linking up with other producers. They can do this by creation producer profiles for the additional producers and then adding their products into their shopfront. The level of involvement that the other supplying producers have can vary from simply supplying produce, to taking a more active role in administering the shopfront by maintaining their products and profile in Abukem.

The central managing producer of a Producer Hub shop can setup the shop according to the producer shop setup manual. At step 2, choose the third option, ‘Hub Shop’. This shop will be the Multi-Farm Shopfront. After the coordinating producer has worked through the set-up manual for just their profile and products, they can create profiles for their additional suppliers, and to add their products into the system.

Before creating the additional profiles, you’ll need to email us to request permission to create more than one profile (this is a spam prevention measure). The coordinating producer may setup the profile and products for everyone, or the other producers may wish to do this themselves. The two options are described below

Coordinating producer sets up profiles and products for supplying producers

1) After the coordinating producer has setup their own shopfront, it is then simple to create a profile for another producer, add their products and then start selling these items in their online shop. Instructions for setting up profiles for others is covered here.

2) Note also that the order cycle interface will be different when you stock items from others. The 'hub' version of the order cycle interface is explained here.

Supplying producers set up their profiles and add in their product range

Supplying producers can create a producer profile, according to the producer profile setup manual. At step 2 they should select to have a ‘producer profile’. They won’t need their own shopfront as they’ll be selling through the coordinating producer’s shopfront. Next they should follow steps 3-5. Finally they should grant the coordinating supplier permission to stock their products, instructions for doing this can be found here.

Advanced features that are helpful for Multi-Producer shops.

• Enterprise Fees. Multi-Farm Shops may wish to use this tool to allocate fees and charges to parties who provide a service (such as packing or delivery) that the other parties benefit from.

• Pricing irregular, indivisible meat items. This page offers some strategies for pricing items like chickens or pumpkins, which are charged by the kg but which have an irregular weight.

• Apply tags to your customers and customise their shopping experience with tag rules. This can make it possible to restrict certain products and certain shipping or payment methods to particular customers, which becomes especially helpful if you have retail and wholesale customers.

• Make your shopfront private. If you prefer to check the suitability of customers before they can order through your shop, you can make your shopfront require login.

• Charge different prices to different customers. There are a number of ways to configure a shop so that you charge different prices to different customers, such as your rural customers and your metropolitan customers.

• Place orders manually for customers who prefer to submit orders by text or over the phone.