Tallman: Online Marketplace to Bring Relief for Some Businesses
Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe program director for Indiana Grown says the initiative’s new online marketplace will serve as a boon for Hoosier farms and small businesses. The Shop Indiana Grown website launched Monday with the assistance of the Indiana Small Business Development Center and Heather Tallman says it gives members a new source of revenue. “For some people…they don’t want to navigate selling through a Facebook marketplace,” said Tallman. “They don’t have the ability or bandwidth to form a website of their own. So I feel like this is really going to bridge that gap.”
In an interview with Inside INdiana Business, Tallman said some vendors on the online marketplace are doing just fine on their own.
“We feel like the members need to have lots of eggs in lots of baskets and that’s how this all works because not everyone shops on Hoosier Harvest Market or not everyone goes to the farmer’s market. Not everyone hits all the cool shops on Mass Ave,” said Tallman. “So we have to take all those pieces into consideration. We feel like that is going to be the key to the success for our members.”
Tallman says there was some demand among Indiana Grown members for a way to elevate their direct marketing abilities. Consumers attending the Indiana State Fair marketplace also expressed a desire to be able to either shop for products for themselves or ship them to friends and family.
Development of the online marketplace began in 2019, but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s when the Indiana SBDC stepped in.
“They said, ‘Hey, we will help you finish this project because it’s going to be so important to your members and they are small business owners, a lot of them,” said Tallman. “So when we got that green light to finish, that was about eight weeks ago.”
Tallman says for many members, having the online marketplace during a pandemic when many farmer’s markets and other events are being canceled is a life saver.
“If you are someone who is a helper, you want to be able to help and so for me, I felt like that was our biggest asset was getting in the weeds with our members and trying to help them find the right labels and packaging and connect them with buyers,” said Tallman. “So to not be able to do that, not to be able to see them…when you take all that into consideration, it was a rough time. For some people, this is going to be the thing that gets them over the hump into that slow time of the year in January, February and March.”
The online marketplace currently has nearly 40 vendors. Tallman says in addition to adding vendors over time, Indiana Grown wants to further develop the site to allow consumers to be able to order items and pick them up at the vendors.
“There are a whole lot of people that were not aware that they could buy local food in their zip code. It was like a sudden awakening for a lot of people and so this is our chance to capitalize that feeling of wanting to do more and wanting to help businesses thrive and driving (consumers) to the website to make those purchases.”
You can view the Shop Indiana Grown website by clicking here.
Tallman says some vendors on the online marketplace are doing just fine on their own.