Market News

This week we’ll go over finances. This is pretty lengthy and much of it is copied from our mother market manager, Eric Wagoner, at Athens Locally Grown. He’s got this market thing down since this is his 16th year. We’ve been in business going on 6 years this coming August.

First off, we’re legally an LLC, and the market is owned and operated by me. You may have heard the market described as a co-op but it has never legally been one even though it’s run in a cooperative spirit.

We’re not a non-profit, either, but we’ve structured things so that over time the market can just barely cover its own expenses. Just like all of our member farms are sustainable growers, the market itself needs to be sustainable. So how do we cover its expenses? One small way is through the memberships you pay. The $25 a year you give to the market is enough (to put it bluntly) to cover most of the costs of having you as a customer: banking fees from depositing your checks, paper and ink for printing, web hosting fees, and that sort of thing. There really isn’t much left and I’m happy to provide those that ask, a copy of our budget.

By far the bulk of our funding comes from the growers themselves. They pay a 10% commission on their sales through the site. This money covers the storage we use, the tables and shelves used to spread out and organize your orders, the food allowance we offer our volunteers, rent and utilities, etc. During the slow parts of the year, the sales are usually not enough to cover our weekly costs, but in the busy times (late fall and early spring, for us) there is extra. If we plan things out well, it pretty much all evens out in the end.

In 2014, the total sales and memberships combined through the market amounted to $168,509.00. 90% of the sales went straight to our growers, and the rest went to rent ($120/month), web hosting ($5,140/year), transportation, insurance and various small business expenses. The “profit” gets counted as personal income on my tax forms, and comes out to roughly $2-3000/year.

The growers get paid out of the shared cashbox for their week’s sales when they drop off their items, during the hour before we open the market. Then, you arrive and pay into the cashbox for your order. We used to then rush to the bank to deposit the money to cover the checks we just wrote to the growers, but now the growers get paid the following week (money you pay via credit cards takes up to a week to reach our account). As explained elsewhere on the website, you are really ordering directly from and paying the growers yourself, but our shared cashbox system makes things convenient for you and them. (Imagine if you ordered from ten growers having to write ten checks when you picked up your items!) This shared cashbox system has so far satisfied the tax man, but it does mean that if you place an order and then never arrive to pick it up, we’re left holding the bag. For that reason, you are responsible for paying for orders not picked up, and that amount is automatically added on to your next order for your convenience.

So, in probably far too much detail, that’s how we operate financially. Our market might be more expensive to run than a traditional “booths and tables” farmers market, but that price buys a system that’s simple, time-saving, and flexible. There’s not much money in the bank, but the market is paying for itself and that’s my primary financial goal. If you’d like to talk with me in person about this or any other aspects of TCH, just pull me aside when you come by to pick up your order.

Many of the decisions I make for the market are based on how the founding market, Athens Locally Grown, is run. The ALG market manager is also the web developer for the website and is in their 16th year of running. We hope to be around for that long too. :)

LOCATION
Building 106, Colony Park Dr. in the Basement of Suite 100, Cumming, GA 30040.
Google Map

PICK UP HOURS
Saturday from 10-12pm.
106 Colony Park Drive, Suite 100 Cumming, GA 30040
Please contact me if you have any questions, problems or suggestions. EMAIL ME

To view the harvest today and tomorrow till 8pm, visit “The Market” page on our website, The Cumming Harvest