Overview:

Here’s how SEED works:

Across the USA, farmers markets are growing by leaps and bounds. But how much is a leap? Can you quantify a bound? Public officials, neighboring businesses, prospective vendors, and other inquiring minds want to know. And farmers market organizations themselves want to be able to quantify their accomplishments.

But all too often farmers market organizers are reluctant to take on the task of measuring their success. Most have never done an “economic impact study” before and the prospect can be intimidating.

That’s why we created SEED, so that you don’t have to repeat our learning curve. You can benefit from our mistakes.

Since we established the Crescent City Farmers market in 1995, we’ve commissioned a series of studies. Each time we fine-tuned our methodology, often with different partners. In 2002, the F.B. Heron Foundation awarded us a grant to develop a simple measurement tool that others could also enjoy. We contracted the services of renowned Loyola University pollster Edward F. Renwick, Ph.D., to conduct the studies and tabulate the results. A seasoned political pollster, he brought scientific discipline to our table. His full reports of market shoppers and vendors are available in PDF formats. Based on his findings, we identified the parts of the studies that worked, the parts that didn’t. We paired down the methodology to be simpler, easier to use. Then, with help from the awesome Outpost Design, we developed this online application for you to use at no cost.

Economic impact 101.

For those of you new to this number-crunching exercise, let us warn you that other peoples’ studies always look far more scientific than your own. It just comes with the territory. For instance, while a corporate chain store’s study (for a new gargantuan store they wish to bestow upon your community once the zoning ordinances have been relaxed) may look bright and shiny, their use of projected sales and multiplier effects is no more scientific than interviewing and counting shoppers’ attendance at markets.

Briefly, SEED provides you with a user-friendly method to estimate the gross receipts at your market, the number of shoppers in attendance, the neighborhoods in which they reside, the dollars they spend at nearby stores, and the frequency of their market attendance, and the sales per square foot (speaking the language of retailers and developers). Interviewing a representative sampling of shoppers will give you the data to input into your SEED account, along with the final tally of shoppers who attended the market on the day of the study. We recommend multiple study days to gain greater accuracy.

Nearby retailers will be most interested to learn how many shoppers and dollars the market brings to their stores—numbers that may help you build support for the institution in your neighborhood. Rural legislators will be interested to learn how an urban initiative—a public market—benefits their constituents, i.e., your vendors. Regardless of which party you are addressing, each will find some piece of self-interest in the multiplier effects that emanate from a single market. For a wonderfully simple explanation of multiplier effects, let us direct you to the Augustana University College study of its campus upon its surrounding community: “multipliers capture the impact of an initial round of spending plus the impacts generated by successive rounds of re-spending the initial dollars within a region. The multiplier process traces the flows of spending and re-spending that take place in the region until the initial dollars have completely leaked to other regions.” The greater the interaction each dollar has with the local economy, the larger the multiplier (or in our language, the “stickier” the economy).

Step 1:

Learn about SEED

You are doing that now. Log onto marketumbrella.org to visit the SEED homepage, where you will find a full menu of background, hints, and instructions as to how you can use this tool to measure the stickiness of the dollars in your market and upon your local economy. This device will help you measure the economic impact of your public market for both internal and external audiences. It is designed to take an otherwise intimidating exercise (economic measurement) and make it simple. We have been running public markets since 1995. From our markets’ early days, we observed the direct economic activity within the market as well as the multiplier effects upon the wider economy; however, we couldn’t afford to hire expensive researchers to provide us with reliable numbers. We did not possess the skills to conduct research ourselves. And most importantly, we learned that many other markets shared our frustration of experiencing economic impact but unable to measure it. Please continue reading to learn how to use SEED.

Step 2:

Set up a SEED profile for your organization

Click here to create a private account for your organization.

• You will be asked to create an organizational name for your account, password, and provide important information about your market organization. Please fill every field. All questions are pertinent to create a profile for your full study.
• You can return to your profile page to update information once you have established your account.
• We will send you an automated response confirming your account name, password, etc. Please print this page and file it away. It is all too easy to forget this information. You will continue to use the same login and password regardless of whom on your staff or among your volunteers inputs the study results.
• With an account for your organization, it is a good time to establish a profile for the market you wish to study. Some of this work requires some low-tech tools and others can be completed on-line.
• Log onto your account and select “Markets” from the menu at the top of the page.
• This takes you to your “Markets” page. Here, you can add or edit your markets listed in your SEED account.
• What kinds of information do you need before setting up your market profile? Have on hand your market’s name, location, day of operation, number of days open per year (for instance, a year-round Saturday market would be open 52 days), and zip code.
• Also, it is essential that you measure the size of your market stalls. What does that mean? In order for SEED to calculate the sales per square foot in your market, we need to know the average size of your market stalls. While the rules for the sizes of vendor stalls may vary greatly from market to market, chances are you have an “average size.” Some markets let vendors stray way out into the aisles; whereas others, require a vendor to fit squarely beneath the ceiling of the E-Z Up tent. Realizing these variances, here is what we want you to do: measure the length and width of your vendor stalls. If your spaces include the space for their vehicles, then include them in the measurement. Once you’ve got the length and width, multiply the two numbers and you have the square footage for your typical or average vendors’ stall. If, on the other hand, your sizes vary, then measure the largest stalls’ length and width; multiply the two numbers. This number gives you the square footage for the largest stall. Measure the smallest stall’s length and width; multiply the two numbers. This number gives you the square footage for the smallest stall. Add these two square footage calculations together; divide two; and you get what’s close enough to the average stall size. Is it accurate enough? We think so. Even if your numbers err on the side of caution, the efficiency per square foot will be so staggering that your study can afford a few extra square feet. Once you calculate the average square footage per vendor stall, please input this number into your market profile.

Please note: while your account’s details remain in the private domain, in exchange for free use of this tool, we wish to post your total economic impact on our site in order to help make the case to public and private investors that public markets are sound social and economic investments in their communities.

Also, please note: While the current tool is designed for US dollars and antiquated measurements like feet, we’re working on a more useful set of measurements for future updates of SEED. After all, the concept is universal.

Step 3:

Download your SEED study forms

This is the easiest step: Simply download and print the forms you will use to interview shoppers, and a cover sheet to keep your information organized and your exercise orderly. You can find the forms (in PDF format) under the Forms tab at the top of each page.

• Select the date you wish to conduct a study at your market.
• Assemble all of the personnel and tools that you will need for the day: study forms, pencils, clipboards, a 9” x 12” envelope to transport the completed study forms back to your office; a hand clicker, name tags for the team, and a camera to photograph the market day.
• Print out a SEED packet. It should include the following forms.
• SEED cover sheet: It serves as a checklist and cover sheet for all of the paper you will accumulate.
• SEED pollster form: This form is designed to save you paper. Each sheet contains 15 interview forms. Make more copies than you think you will need on the day. Since you will be repeating the exercise (right?), you can save the extras for the next time.
• [OPTIONAL] SEED forager form: Designed to assist you in capturing qualitative data by interviewing market neighbors. The information gathered using this form is not used in SEED.
• [OPTIONAL] SEED vendor form: Like the forager form, these optional interviews cannot be incorporated into the quantitative SEED formulas; however, it may provide you with answers to questions you’ve found difficult. We recommend that the Study Directors distribute this form.
• Also recommended to keep your materials together: A 9”x12” envelope for all of your forms. Either write details about the date and location of the SEED study on the outside of the envelope or glue the cover sheet to the outside. (Optional: if you are conducting vendor interviews, provide an envelope or a box for vendors to drop their anomymous answers in.)
• This is a good time to assemble your team. Who are they? market volunteers? Board members? University students? Vendors’ kids? There is no one good answer to this question of who’s best for the task. It varies depending upon the issues in your market and the ability of your organization to provide guidance to the team.
• Should you pay for the services? It doesn’t hurt to provide incentives (like a market T-shirt or canvas bag). Moreover, if volunteers are too difficult to find, then pay for the services. After all, you often get what you pay for.
• How many team members do you need? We recommend four skill groups: Study Director, Clickers, Pollsters, and Foragers.
• The Study Director: It is important to have one person who facilitates everything. This is the individual who coordinates the team, keeps possession of the Cover Sheet, and hands out (and receives) completed forms. The Study Director can be the market Manager; however this may depend on the level of responsibility that he/she has. If you are conducting vendor interviews (optional), we recommend that it be this idividual who distributes the forms.
• The Pollsters: They should interview between 10 and 25% of the shoppers in attendance on that day. It goes quickly so don’t be intimidated by that number. Who knows? You might even do more than that. Moreover, we discourage you to end interviewing too early. It is very important to capture the shoppers who attend at all hours of the market: The “early birds” and the “afternoon owls” both possess useful information for your research. Depending upon the size of your market, we recommend between two and four pollsters at a time.
• The Clickers: They are there to literally “click” the number of shoppers entering the market with a hand-held number clicker. This position is well suited to “detail people” who like to quietly work on their own. We recommend shifts no longer than two hours in length. So, if your market operates for four hours, then you need two clickers.
• The Foragers: Just as a mushroom forager searches for fungi on the forest floor, the market should designate one or more individuals to forage for anecdotal research from the surrounding neighborhood during the hours of the market. Send a team member out into the neighborhood to interview a residential neighbor who’s washing his/her car or a shop owner who’s open during market hours. This will provide your market with great, qualitative analysis or stories from which to hang the numbers. The numbers impress but the stories stick in people’s minds.
• Train your team. Prior to a SEED study day, bring the team together for a meeting. Walk them through the steps.
• Provide the team with a typed script in spoken vernacular. There’s no point in writing something too formal or too long. They will simply adapt or edit down individually to conform to their personal styles. Ideally, they describe what they are doing at the market and why in the same manner.
  
  Script for clickers: “Hi, I’m _______. I am counting the number of shoppers in attendance today in order to help the _______ market to better serve you.”
  
  Script for pollsters: “Hi, I’m _______. I am conducting a brief study for the _______ market. May I ask you a few questions so that the market can better serve you? It won’t take long.”
  
  Script for foragers: “Hi, I’m _______. I am interviewing neighbors in order to help the _______ market to better serve the neighborhood. May I ask you a few questions? It won’t take long.” [Again, an optional track of SEED.]
  
  Script for study director: “Hi, I’m _______. I am distributing a questionaire to vendors today, so that we can gather information to help us make the market better. It should take five minutes today to fill it out. Before leaving the market, you can put it in this envelope (or box on market table). We don’t want to know who handed in which form, so please do not put your name on it.” [Please note: It’s a good idea to offer a free coffee or water when they hand them in. Again, this is an optional SEED step.]
• Conduct role-playing. A fun, easy way to get your team prepared and excited for the job is to set up a meeting a few days in advance of the selected date in order to conduct some role-playing exercises. Prepare them for the occasional disappointment when shoppers refuse to be interviewed; or for the scenario when more than one team member asks to interview the same shopper.
• Decide in advance where you’d like for the “clicker” to stand (on an elevated knoll, atop a ladder, or before a second floor window) so as to attain the best view of shoppers entering the market. Together with your team, observe a map of the property to discuss the flow of shoppers, vantage points, etc. Please note: This exercise can often shed light upon the flow of the market, official and unofficial entrances, and public safety.
• Stick to the methodology. SEED is designed to work with hard numbers. Explain to your team that they should use the pollster form as it was designed – no stories scribbled into the margins or numerical ranges provided as answers. These only skew the outcomes and the accuracy. If, for instance, a shopper answers to a question “between $20 and $30,” then we recommend that the pollster assigns a value of $25 and/or asks the shopper to be more specific: “If you say between $20 and $30, do you mean $25?”

Tip: Encourage your team to dress alike in some form or fashion. Provide them with nametags, a market hat (something that also doubles as their in-kind payment for the volunteer service) or T-shirt. They should look “official,” so as not to scare the shoppers.

Step 4:

Conduct a study at the market

Choose one or more market dates to conduct a study. Assemble a group of market volunteers to help out. How many volunteers? As we said before, that depends on the size of your market, the number of entrances, and so forth. Instead of volunteers, should you hire professional pollsters? Pollster Ed Renwick says yes. Our experience, however, has been that shoppers are eager to participate, if you tell them two things: 1) the interview is only five questions long; 2) it will help the market. As a result, we think you can get good results with volunteer pollsters.

• Here’s the team we recommend you assemble before each polling day:
• One SEED Study Director to manage the team and keep materials together. The Study Director may also conduct optional vendor interviews.
• One or more Pollsters to interview shoppers. (two per two-hour shift)
• One or more Clickers to count the number of shoppers in attendance. (one per two-hour shift)
• One or more Foragers to travel into the surrounding neighborhood to capture anecdotal information from retailers, taxi drivers, residents, letter carriers, and so forth, on how life is different in their neighborhood on market days. (If you choose to utilize this optional track of interviews, we recommend one per day. You don’t want to overwhelm your neighbors with packs of market walkers and talkers.)
• Outfit the team with recognizable identification (such as a market T-shirt, badge, or logo sticker) so that shoppers and other respondents quickly understand who is conducting the research and why. As a result, pollsters will also feel more confident approaching strangers. The interviews will go more smoothly.
• Study Director:
• This is your point person who will follow the study from start to finish. This person invests considerable time planning, training, managing the team and is responsible for seeing the completion and return to the office for all forms. For small organizations, this could be the Market manager. It could also be an oppotunity to groom a new board member who’s itching to get their hands on a concrete task.
• Clickers:
  How do you count the number of shoppers in attendance? First, we recommend you purchase a hand-clicker, available from office supply stores everywhere, to enable Clickers to count the number of shoppers in attendance at the market. Station the Clicker at the entrance to count shoppers as they arrive. If there is no single entrance, station the Clicker across the street from a good vantage point to observe foot traffic. If there is no location that can observe all entrances, then your job is indeed difficult. We realize that. Do the best you can. If clicking is simply not going to give you the accuracy you’re looking for, consider this alternative: Place greeters at the entrances to place gold stars on each shopper. Explain to shoppers why, if necessary. From there, you count each roll or sheet of gold stars. While this job is relatively simple, it is also tiring. Whereas the Pollsters may finish their interviews in less than an hour, someone needs to count customers all market long. We recommend lining up enough Clickers so that no one is stationed for more than two hours.
• Who is a “shopper?” We recommend counting anyone who walks or rolls into the market on their own steam. Count adults, kids, but not infants.
• Extra tools that might be useful: a short ladder, camera, chair, an umbrella for sun. Also, the SEED Study Director should check in on the clicker from time to time: bring coffee, water; relieve them for bathroom breaks, etc.
• While other methods of counting shoppers may exist, we have found the very act of searching for the ideal location from which to observe the market and its entrances is itself helpful to learn the logistics of entering the market, obstacles, directional flow, and the rhythm of shoppers. It is for this reason that we recommend that the clicker mark down at half-hour intervals the running count on the checklist. You may be surprised as to which hours are the busiest.
• Pollsters:
• Station your Pollsters at the entrances to the market. (We have found that interviewing shoppers upon their departure is challenging. With hands full of produce, they’re less likely to stop for long to answer questions. However, if shoppers are in a hurry to shop, ask them if they would be willing to help you on their way out.) Or, go to a popular vendor’s line. Start from the back and work up to the front of the line. After all, you’re providing the shopper with entertainment while they’re waiting for their favorite products. Skip every other shopper in line; otherwise, respondents may parrot what they’ve just heard.
• Do not interview entire groups, married couples, etc. They too may simply parrot what they’ve just heard. Instead, interview the one member of a group and then move on. What happens if the shopper responds with “I’ve already been interviewed?” Say “thank you” politely and profusely. Tip: Place green stickers or a gold star upon the lapel on each shopper interviewed as a means to communicate to other members of the team not to bother the shopper again.
• Make sure Pollsters have a short script that describes who they are, what they’re doing, and why. It need be no more complicated than, “Hi, I’m Denise, a volunteer for the market. Would you be willing to answer a short, five-question interview that will help the market?” If shoppers want to know how it will help the market, Pollsters should be able to give them a basic answer to that, as well. (“It will help us quantify our benefits to shoppers, farmers, and the community.”) See “Step 3” for three different scripts.
• How many shoppers should you interview? The short, unscientific answer is, “As many as you can.” The more shoppers you interview, the more accurate your results will be. If you count 1,000 adult shoppers attending your market, attempt to complete as many as 100 interviews on that day; however, 250 would be even better.
• Be careful of young Pollsters: They may be too intimidated to approach older shoppers. Make sure that they do not skew the research. They should not stand in place. Shoppers may learn how to avoid the Pollsters. Circle the market; approach lines (as described above). If the team seems to be having difficulty, we recommend managing by example. Take the clipboard from a team member at the start of his/her shift and conduct a few interviews to show just how easy it is to do. The same can be said for the Clicker. It is an opportunity to point out the best place to count when/where a shopper “enters” the market. Are there other ways of gleaning information from shoppers other than to interview them? Yes.  You can set up a table at the entrance offering free beverages or cookies for shoppers who fill out a form themselves.
• Foragers:
  While the quantitative team members are busily examining shoppers, consider sending an experienced volunteer with good communication skills out into the neighborhood. If personal safety is a serious concern in the market’s neighborhood or if your market enjoys an adversarial relationship with neighbors, you may wish to decline this optional track of SEED. Or, why not send foragers out in pairs and/or with senior market leadership? This might be a good time to run interference with neighbors who remain unconvinced that the public market serves their interests. Using the foragers’ form to capture stories in an organized format, make sure that your foragers get the names, spellings, and contact information for the individuals they interview. You will likely need to follow up for accuracy’s sake. Since issues may vary from market to market, please give your foragers some guidance as to what may illustrate the effects of the market upon the neighboring residents and businesses. Does the market create parking nightmares? Or, does it drive shoppers to area businesses? Do residents value the market in their neighborhood? What is their opinion of the institution? Do they know who runs it and why?
• At the end of the market day, organize all of your materials for the individual who will input the data into the SEED account. You should bring back the following:
• SEED cover sheet, containing vital statistics, like number of shoppers and vendors in attendance, list of supplies and volunteers, and date of the study.
• Pages and pages of pollster forms from the Pollsters. Number these pages once your Pollsters return them to you filled out. It helps you keep track of what’s what.
• Supplies, like the clicker and pens. We recommend keeping everything in an envelope or shoebox. When you’re ready for your next SEED study day, you will have some of the materials ready to go.

Step 5:

Create a SEED sub-account for the market you studied

• Log onto your SEED account.
• If you have already created a sub-account for your market, then select the “Studies” button from the menu at the top of the page. This will take you directly to the page where you may either create a “new study” or contribute to one you have already established.
  OR
  If you have not yet created a sub-account for your market, then select the “Markets” button from the menu at the top of the of the page. This will take you directly to the page where you may either create a “new market” or edit an existing one’s profile by selecting the appropriate button.
• Once you create market sub-accounts, you don’t need to create new accounts for these markets every time you conduct a study. Just log onto your SEED account and select that market (the Saturday market, for example) from the menu and input your new data.
• Identify a computer-savvy person to input the data. While not particularly complex computer work, you don’t want to have to explain computing basics to someone meant to assist your economic analysis.
• Give them the time to do the careful inputting. We recommend at least 90-minute intervals, any less than that can lead to confusion as to when work started, stopped.
• Don’t let study forms out of your sight. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Keep them at your office, never let staff or volunteers input the results at their own homes.
• If there is a question, or a problem (i.e., can’t read the handwriting), do not let the person who’s inputting the data make decisions as how to interpret the data on their own. Make sure they come to you with questions. And, if you can’t answer them, keep our contact information handy. We’re always here to help: seed@marketumbrella.org or 504-861-5898. Please note; We can help with issues pertaining to the mechanics of using SEED, not how to read bad handwriting!

Step 6:

Enter your data into your SEED account

• With all the completed pollster forms in front of you, make certain that each is numbered and dated. Remember, this should have been done at the market. Numbering the forms will help you keep track, should they somehow get out of order. (And somehow, they WILL get out of order!) Dating the forms will avoid confusion if you plan to conduct a series of studies throughout the year. (You don’t want to confuse forms from one session to the other.)
• From the menu at the top of the page, select “Studies” from the menu.
• This takes you to a page that lists the studies you have already commissioned in your SEED account. If this is a new study, then select the button at the top left reading “New Study.” This will set up a table into which you input study results.
  
  • Name your study with something like “Sat Mkt, 05/07/2006.”
  • Input the date of study.
  • Input the number of estimated shoppers.
  • Input the number of vendors on the day.
  • Begin to input the results from your pollsters.
  Remember, SEED studies capture a moment in time. The next time you conduct a study for the same market, you will repeat this step (as it will be another discrete study).
• Once you have inputted the market profile, the study day’s data, then you’re ready to create a SEED report. Please note: This current step is a lot of work. It may take a few days of inputting. In order to keep track of many pages of study results, develop a plan to manage the stack of papers already inputted and the stack of papers to be inputted. One suggestion is to use a highlighter marker to indicate once a page has been inputted. Once you’ve completed your inputting, select “Reports” from the menu at the top of the page. Here you will be able to create a report to download (as a PDF) and print.

Step 7:

Create a SEED report

SEED will walk you through the steps needed to tabulate your results. For example, entering the number of days your market operates per year will enable you to transform your single-day study results into annual results, giving you projected annual gross receipts. (The more studies you are able to conduct throughout the year, the more your projection will match reality.) This multiplier, applied to the other study responses, will also give you annual data for items such as the amount market shoppers spend at nearby stores, and the average annual amount shoppers spend at the market.

With projected gross annual receipt figures in-hand, you now have the opportunity to estimate your overall economic impact by using an appropriate multiplier effect formula. Which one to use? Most studies use 2%, regardless of whether they fully appreciate why. Is that such a bad idea? Yes and no. If you have the resources, we recommend commissioning the Bureau of Economic Assessment to determine your appropriate multiplier effect. Administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce, this is the service that many large corporations use to determine their impact when planning production or retail expansion. However, if you don’t have the resources to commission their research, you can always play it safe with 2%.

Review your economic impact:

When SEED has finished with your data, it will give you a report that shows:

The date of the report
The # of studies on which it was based (one, at this point)
The multiplier used
The sample size (how many total interviews were conducted)
market Statistics
    The total # of shoppers interviewed
    The average # of shoppers per market
    Estimated annual market attendance
    Average $ spent at the market per shopper
    Percentage of shoppers who spend at nearby businesses (per market)
    Average $ spent at nearby businesses (per shopper)
    Gender makeup of shoppers
    Average size of market stalls (in square footage measurement)
market Visitation Frequency Statistics
    Rarely (%)
    Several times/year (%)
    Monthly (%)
    Several times/month (%)
market Economic Impact
    Average gross receipts (per market)
    Projected annual gross receipts
    Project annual sales per square foot
    Economic impact (using multiplier effect)
market Economic Impact on Nearby Businesses
    Average gross receipts at nearby businesses (per market)
    Projected annual gross receipts at nearby businesses
    Projected annual state & municipal tax revenue
Economic impact of increased receipts at nearby businesses (using multiplier effect)
Total combined economic impact (using multiplier effect)

Shopper Characteristics (by zip code)
    Average $ spent per shopper, the estimated total # of shoppers, and the estimated total amount spent annually, by zip code, as well as the percent of total shoppers per market by zip code.

Step 8:

Share your market impact

So now you’ve got a couple of pages full of numbers. What do you do with them? The answer depends on who you’re trying to influence. If you’re trying to share the good news of your accomplishments with friends, supporters, elected officials, prospective funders or prospective vendors, neighboring businesses, or even other organizations contemplating starting their own markets, you’ll want to talk about your economic impact. “Our Saturday market generates an average of $12,000/week in direct sales to vendors,” you’ll say, “for total yearly receipts of $624,000 (the average weekly amount times 52 Saturday markets/year).

“In addition, market shoppers spend an average of $15,000 each week at businesses adjacent to the market, for an annual total of $780,000. These additional retail sales generate $39,000 in taxes for local government (if sales tax equals 5%).

“Moreover, the additional spending in our economy made possible by the combined impact of the market and its effect on neighboring businesses (its multiplier effect) is responsible for a total of $1,432,080 in annual income to our local community. (The sum of the market and nearby retail sales, times the multiplier effect.) Not bad for a little market that generates $12,000/week in direct sales to local food growers!”

If you’re talking to a group of policymakers that includes rural officials, you might point out that the $12,000 a week in total direct sales to growers, divided by the number of growers at your market (perhaps 30), translates into an extra $400/week, or $1,600/month, in the pockets of struggling rural residents and economies.

If you’re sharing study information with your vendors, you might want to elaborate on the information contained in the study data about Shopper Characteristics. You might, for example, point out that shoppers from a few upscale zip codes make up a relatively small percentage of your shoppers, but that they are responsible for the largest volume of sales. Vendors might then speculate on the interests of these consumers…for heirloom and specialty vegetables, like arugula and baby bok choy, perhaps, or gourmet cheeses and chocolate-dipped berries. On the other hand, the second-largest percentage may come from two predominantly working class zip codes, whose shoppers are interested in more conventional produce. Vendors will also be interested to learn that these shoppers are responsible for the second-largest dollar volume of sales (or whatever your study data indicates).

In other words, SEED will supply you with a wealth of information, but it will be up to you to help translate the information so that its significance becomes apparent to your constituents. Pages of numbers move few people other than accountants.

 To see a case study of the Crescent City Farmers market, click here.

 Links to other useful sources of information.

Tips:

Survey Do’s and Don’t’s

Do:

Choose pollsters who are outgoing, “people” people. There’s no need for this exercise to be agonizing for anyone.

Choose an “average” day to conduct your study. Not the busiest day of the year, and not the slowest, either. (Better yet, conduct studies several times a year, such as once every season; or at the start of the season, the middle of the season, and the end of the season.)

Identify your pollsters with an organizational T-shirt, badge, or sticker.

Ask prospective participants: “Would you be willing to complete a short, five-question interview that will help the market?”

Attempt to interview shoppers on the way in. If they are in a hurry to shop, ask if they would be willing to complete the interview on their way out.

Ask people to narrow their spending estimate to a single figure, not a range, even if it’s somewhat arbitrary. When you compile your results, you’ll have to mark $10 or $20, not $10-$20. Ask them to please give you their best estimate. If they cannot, you’ll have to do it for them by entering the mid-point of their range.

Attempt to interview between 10%-25% of shoppers in attendance that day.

Your best to count every adult shopper in attendance.

Interview area merchants, residents, and others in the vicinity of the market for anecdotal information on how the market impacts them.

Don’t:

Interview on the busiest day of the year; or on the slowest.

Choose reluctant pollsters.

Interview more than one shopper in a group. (They’ll tend to parrot each others’ answers.)

Get in an argument with anyone, or attempt to force an unwilling participant. (This may be more likely when attempting to get anecdotal information from neighboring businesses or residents, than when interviewing market shoppers.)

Stop after completing just one study. The more times you conduct a study, the better your data will be!