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Buyer Experience
Local Orbit is optimized for chefs and institutional food purchasers who have specific menu requirements. While there's an overlap in the B2B and B2C e-commerce experience, there are distinct differences.
We do have markets that sell to consumers, but the tools work for them as well. We are focused on providing optimal experience for farm to restaurant, school, hospital, corporate dining. Some small grocers and food coops also purchase through the site, and retailers like Whole Foods could become buyers.
We'd like to see all sellers and markets use LO to support all their market channels - and this capacity differentiates us from the competition.
When a buyer logs in they are taken directly to the catalog page. It is designed to function the way chefs are used to ordering, by adding/checking of items from a list. Obviously, there's more functionality than a spread sheet, but the basic idea of adding quantities to a box without traditional product-based navigation is critical.
There isn't a lot of browsing and discovery, once a buyer starts using the site. Anecdotally, we believe a majoring of buyers use the weekly fresh sheet email to review and make decisions.
We are adding the option for markets to choose from a second interface that is more traditional B2C. This will be offered to higher level service tiers.
There is a featured item option for markets to move a particular product, to offer deals, or to promote sellers. This can be much improved.
Filtering by delivery day options, by seller, by category. Future: add some kind of tagging/attribute system for more granular filtering, without being excessive. Also enable buyers to select account preferences regarding what products they'll see.
We have deliberately omitted a search function from the shopping interface because we don't want people to search for an out of season product, or a product that's not available in their region. We're working to change behavior - which means learning to cook/eat seasonally - and we prefer to show people what is available, vs. what isn't.
We have discussed "you might also like" or "similar" search results, like amazon or netflix, for example, but these are unsatisfactory options and don't seem to offer any real ROI. When customers ask about search, the understand and generally support the thinking behind this decision. Perhaps we'll come up with an alternative in the future, but it's not a priority.
This should be turned into a home page for the market, rather than the basic informational page that now exists. The News page feed should be integrated with the Market Info page.
Currently, most LO markets are closed, and they don't provide any visibility to prospective buyers. People must request an account and be approved by the market manager.
Each seller has a page with their story, as well as their available products. Buyers can add items to their cart right from the seller page. We've chosen a random load of sellers to be fair, with a side navigation that lets people select other sellers. Open to reconsideration.
These page is designed with the expectation that sellers will become independent from markets in the next iteration, and these could serve as their storefronts, either within LO or embedded/widgetized on other platforms.
Most buyers will have one default payment option, but in some cases we offer both ACH (e-check) and Credit Card payment. The goal is to encourage more use of ACH because of the significant cost savings for sellers. This is a low margin business and every percentage makes a big difference.
The individual seller's name is attached to all order receipts, invoices, packing slips, etc. This information is one of the key drivers of local food buyer. Feature to be added: buyers will be able to download table tents, posters, tray liners, shelf talkers with information about the farmer/food maker whose product they just purchased. This helps them tell the story to their customers - and being able to source local and tell the story is a competitive advantage for restaurants, and often a community imperative for institutional purchasers.
Buyer reporting should tell more than just an order story. It should show "burn down rates" - how quickly a restaurant goes through a particular item. For institutions with sustainable and local food service procurement mandates, LO's tools should help purchasers report on their impact.
How would the application track this? What incentive would the buyer have to enter extra information into the LO system?