Oya Organic farm is a CCOF-certified organic Bay Area farm run by Marsha Habib and Modesto Sanchez Cruz. The pair combine the agroecological farming practices they learned in California and Oaxaca, Mexico, along with philosophical influences from Marsha’s Japanese background. More than 50 different crops are grown at one time in the nutrient-rich soil of Oya Organic farm.
From Email Orders to WooCommerce
Prior to the pandemic, Oya Organics ran a small CSA box program through their email list. Customers could order CSA boxes with a predetermined selection of produce on a regular basis. They could then choose a pickup location or have the Bay Area farm fresh produce delivered to them.
Then the pandemic hit and everyone began ordering everything online. Oya Organics was suddenly inundated with requests to join their CSA subscription. With so many members, Marsha realized it was no longer feasible to operate the CSA program via email. There were simply too many orders to keep track of.
Thankfully, a skilled programmer friend helped Marsha set up a WordPress site. He added a WooCommerce plug-in for the farm’s CSA orders.
But without programming experience of her own, Marsha found it difficult to maintain the site. It was hard for her to troubleshoot and add new features to the website when she needed it. Her programmer friend wasn’t a paid employee, and he soon became too busy to assist with the website.
Marsha struggled with reporting order data on WooCommerce. With so many different pickup sites and box sizes for the CSA program, she was often worried about making mistakes.
There were also issues with the WooCommerce payment processing. The site used Stripe to accept credit card payments, which came with a 3-4% fee. “I didn’t want to fork over those fees, especially when customers were buying thousands of dollars worth of boxes in their subscription plans,” Marsha shared.
Marsha preferred to accept cash, Venmo, and Zelle instead. That meant she then had to create her own spreadsheet in order to track the payments. It was a tedious process.
Bay Area farm delivery on Airmart
One day while delivering produce to long-time Airmart member Giving Fruits, Marsha asked about the platform.
She discovered Airmart would not only allow her to accept and track Zelle, Venmo, and cash payments but also enable her to branch out and sell individual products outside of the CSA box subscriptions.
At first, Marsha was hesitant to switch platforms. After all, she had already poured so much time and energy into WooCommerce.
But as soon as she found herself with extra time on her hands, Marsha was ready to launch the shop. The Airmart team worked with Marsha one-on-one to help her set up an Oya Organic shop featuring individual items from the farm, including fruit and vegetables and homemade jams, salsa, and hot sauces.
The Oya Organic Airmart shop has all the functionality Marsha needs, and she can easily edit the store on her own, no programming required. She loves having the ability to use Airmart on the go.
“The Airmart mobile app is perfect for farmers, who are often out in the field and have no time to sit at a computer.”
Marsha is looking forward to transferring the CSA to Airmart as soon as the subscription feature launches.
Get your farm online with Airmart.