Blog entries by Tom Roberts

About Tom Roberts

When I started attending the Brewer Farmers’ Market back in August of 1983, my sole concern was being able to sell the produce my farm was growing at a good price. After attending market for a year or two, I began to realize that how the market was organized had a great impact on my sales. And how the market was organized also influenced how it made decisions about dues, new members, what could be sold at market, and how it promoted itself—and this, too, had an impact on my sales. So I got involved in the market’s steering committee and began to understand how various market members thought the market should operate. Some wanted a market czar, some wanted everyone to be allowed to do their own thing. But everyone seemed to agree that if the market as a whole did well, then so did they.

View all posts by Tom Roberts

Limiting market membership?

February 9, 2004 by Tom Roberts Categories

Best Practices

We submit that there are two questions in the issue of limiting market membership. These two questions are: “Does the market have the right to limit membership?” “Is it a good idea for the market to limit membership?” Does the market have the right? When it comes to the ability of market members to limit […]

Dependent markets versus independent markets

February 9, 2004 by Tom Roberts Categories

Consider for a moment the way farmers’ markets are organized. Not whether or how they are incorporated, not how many or what kind of members they have, but rather how and whether the membership is involved in the management of the business of being a farmers’ market. There seems to be two general categories: those […]

Market slogans and longer pieces

January 22, 2002 by Tom Roberts Categories

What does your market say in its advertising? Several of the markets doing brochures or print advertising have used slogans or phrases to better communicate with their audience. Many other organizations also attempt to influence the public consciousness toward paying more attention to localness and community in making purchases. This page is presented in an […]

Don’t Use Hanson Hanging Scales

December 22, 1992 by Tom Roberts Categories

by Tom Roberts, Selling Outdoors, 1992. The first issue of Selling Outdoors contained an article about the State Bureau of Weights and Measures ruling on the Hanson scales that are commonly used at farmers’ markets. That ruling made it clear that in 1992 there should be no more Hanson hanging scales in use at markets. […]

U or I? The shape of your market

December 22, 1990 by Tom Roberts Categories

by Tom Roberts (article from 1990’s Selling Outdoors) Larger markets, those with more than six or eight members regularly attending, often abandon the straight line style setup of smaller markets. Instead, they adopt a double line or “U” shape, where the marketers set up in two lines with displays facing one another. Orono and Camden […]