Saskatoon Farmers' Market hopes online sales can keep it afloat during pandemic

Like most businesses trying to stay open during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Saskatoon Farmers' Market is now online.

They have fewer vendors at the moment, because some of the products don't lend themselves as well to selling online, according to the organization's executive director, Erika Quiring. 

"It's important that it maintain viability and one way that we thought we could do that without risking ours and everybody else's health was to go online," she said.

The last weekend the market was open as per usual was March 14-15.

How does it work?

Quiring and her team spend a couple of days each week getting numbers from vendors on how much product they have to work with and updating the online store. One of their team members had experience with online retail, which has helped a lot, she said. 

"We're able to open for orders on Wednesday mornings and then we'll take orders until Thursday night," she said.  "Friday morning I send each vendor their list of products that they sold online during the week."

The vendors collect the orders and bring them to the physical market location. Buyers can select a pick-up or delivery option. A team of volunteers (maximum 10 people) packs each order and gets it ready. 

Quiring said she hopes the market can continue through this time. 

"Small businesses rely on continual revenue. And the Saskatoon Farmers' Market is a pretty small revenue organization overall," she said.