on farm store - honor system

paul wheaton wrote:comment on the video from a person on youtube:

A local potter in Spring City Utah does this with all of his pottery. One weekend he went on a trip and he forgot to close up shop. When he came back, almost every piece in his entire shop had been taken (several months to a year worth of work). When he went to the back of his shop and found his money pot was literally overflowing with cash. Not one piece was unpaid for.
Turns out a tourist bus came by the shop and they snatched up everything.
Good to know there are decent people in the world.

There are FAAAAR MORE "decent people" in the world than we give credit for. I think the rise of "Yellow Journalism" helped to popularize the all-too-real tendency to fixate on negative reports. Research has determined that Headlines touting "Dark Storm Clouds predict Record Rains" and "Area Crime Increases 14%" are far more likely to garner readers than headlines of "Blue Skys forecast for the weekend" or "Local Farms welcome 137 new Colts, Calves and Llamas to their fields."

Good Luck to ALL Roadside Marketeers!

Joel Hollingsworth wrote:Honor systems don't work around management types:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/06/magazine/what-the-bagel-man-saw.html?pagewanted=all

now that was an interesting read, thank you:)

also the effectiveness of your honor farm stand will depend a lot on your customer base for instance if you market to the general public through signs and such you may expect more thievery (though i still doubt you would see a huge amount) whereas if you market via word of mouth through family, friends and particularly churches you will be much less likely to experience thievery and any that happens will likely be very minimal, especially if that church has a large part of its beliefs based on honesty, like most christian churchs ought to have

i also really like the idea of placing an order via email, that is a genious way to treat regular customers well, you could then type each individual order out with a name and print the name, so that each customer had their order labeled for them, though i would still have an area available for people who may just be stopping by to see what your stand is all about

and last but not least, the more items you offer for sale the more stable of a business you may be able to offer, if in an area with people that are more likely to steal, such as the high meth addict area, you could possibly put in a vending machine after your business is going well so that these items cannot simply be grabbed...

Paul and Jocelyn review the movie, Ingredients in this podcast podcast 119
Paul's favorite approach is the honor system farm stand.

Just making a fresh post to bring more life into this topic.

It's nice to know that there are still good souls and one can run an honor stand. And that an honor stand still works. Here the closest we have are a few baby food jars to put your money in for the local weekly paper that's displayed in a stack... and overall people are good about it and rooting for a quarter if you put in a dollar (75c an issue) is common.

You don't hear too much about the honor system. I guess that's because the sort of people you find vary greatly from region to region.
And on top of that, it takes a huge amount of faith in humanity to set up a stand with the honor system, which limits the numbers we can look at of how often it works.

That said, there is a guy who sells hay out of his barn by the honor system, near me. So it's still alive and well and I'm happy to see that there are a lot of decent people around here.

The way that I look at the honor system on my farm, is that if any money at all shows up in the kitty, then I am ahead. Because the fruits and vegetables I put on it are not going to last until the next farmer's market anyway, so if they get taken without payment, then I'm just missing a little bit of compost. I've never had a problem. I can leave vegetables, and a jar to put cash in. Works out fine.

We buy raw milk from an honor stand. They do prefer that you call ahead,  but it's all in a fridge in a little shed. Put money in the supplied envelope and leave it in the fridge.

A neighbour has wood available by the wheelbarrow load. Go and pick it up and leave the money in his post box. Simple.

Many places on the back roads here in the Netherlands have honour systems for the usual produce.

I like using honour systems because I like it that someone who doesn't know me, trusts me!

(Note:  this is the second page of this thread - see Paul''s fun honor system farm stand videos and more discussion on page 1!)

Today, I was skimming this article
People who talk to pets, plants, and cars are actually totally normal, according to science

and stopped dead at this:

In another experiment, when professors paid for tea and coffee using an honesty box, they paid three times more often when the box featured an image of eyes instead of flowers.

It's because  

Moreover, various studies prove the mere presence of eyes cue people to behave as if they are literally being watched.

The eyes have it! Such a clever idea for honor system farm stands!

That reminds me of the norm in customer service for hotels- putting mirrors behind the front desk. I think they do this, because I don't think anyone would like to watch themselves be a jerk.

Haha, I KNEW there had to be a thread about an honour system vegetable stand somewhere on this forum! :-)

I'm thinking of doing this as an experiment, to help a couple of my neighbour's kids make some pocket money and learn about money and value. Simple stuff like a few cut flowers in jars, pussy willows, maybe some surplus veggies in season. Sort of a summer Saturday thing, perhaps? Great ideas here!

one of the houses i lived in growing up had a large honor system farm stand down the road. i used to get sent there all the time with a list and some $$, to get corn, carrots and some of the other things they had on offer.
just a simple list with the price of everything and a coffee can for the money.

my mom did this too, for a while, from her last place. mostly it was veggie garden overflow, but she also did jams and preserves, and some baked apple breads and other baked goods.
her front yard wasnt that large so she could see through the window most of the time when someone came up, and often there were people just around in the yard. but mostly it was untended, honor system.

these days i think you need to lock down the money box. it's one thing if someone helps themselves to some veggies, especially where you may well have given it for free if they had asked or needed.
but definitely a different thing to to dangle easy $$ to steal, at least these days, unfortunately i think the world has gotten sleezier in my lifetime.

in a wholesome rural town maybe better, maybe could do it totally honor system....
way way out there rural, and almost rural but close to a city...i think the money should be locked down.

i have often thought about, and tried once to talk some of my neighbors and friends into doing a co-op honor farm stand.
that way you could have a lot more stuff, putting together the couple of things each person is contributing.
that way it is not always dependant on one person always stocking it. each person could contribute when they want, maybe drop off only once a week.

and the person who has the best spot as far as traffic and closeness to major routes could actually host the stand. potentially also it could move, or have multiple locations.

additionally the contributing members could work out a trade/a barter rate. like you could trade your veggies for someone else's and then just dont get paid for those. either pound for pound or money rate for trade.

i also like the idea of doing it PAY WHAT YOU CAN. you could have suggested prices but also a pay what you can sign that explains if you need to, you can pay less. and also suggesting if you want to donate extra, its always welcome. in this way i think someone might take for free, but this would be acceptable. some people might appreciate what you are doing they would give an extra tip/bonus/donation

We have several "gate sales" egg boxes locally. They often sell them for less than my eggs in my store. Some losses, some gains as people above have mentioned. One lady has a lovely sentry box set up for selling her home made jams and chutneys.
Recently one lady has set up a table in the community hall (she has been unable to attend the craft fair in person due to looking after her husband). As well as a cash box, she has a notice with her paypal account email. In the UK at least, more people just don't use cash and can do an instant payment online with their phones.