[serf]

the noncash payments/hours/product differentiation make a lot of sense to me, you're creating a wider customer list essentially.

the 'lower customer densities' twist is interesting. I wonder what creates that situation. Maybe people want to rush their purchases when in a crowd?

[DistractionRect]

> Maybe people want to rush their purchases when in a crowd?

Anecdotally, that does align with my experience. I tend to try to shop off hours, but now stores try to cram soo much into their brick 'n mortar footprint that even light foot traffic is a claustrophobic experience.

For me, the inability to freely navigate a crowded store and the short mean time between interruption (where you have to move because someone else wants to get by or look at the same thing), curb my desire to linger and peruse. I make my plan, I get in, I get out. And that's only when I can't order for pickup/delivery to avoid navigating the store entirely.

[everforward]

Yup, this is me. I have poor impulse control, so if shopping is easy my impulses take over and I buy stuff I want but don't need.

If the place is crowded then shopping is annoying and hard, and my impulse says to get the things I need and leave. I'm more likely to leave without things I need (eh, do I really want to trudge back across the store for milk or can I just deal with black coffee?)

[morkalork]

Exactly. When a market is too busy, it just feels like your being pushed on out by the crowd.

[iamflimflam1]

Much more time for interaction with the stallholders. We definitely buy more when we have a good chat as there's more time for up selling and cross selling.

+ after having a chat you feel guilty not actually buying anything...

[pmx]

> the 'lower customer densities' twist is interesting. I wonder what creates that situation. Maybe people want to rush their purchases when in a crowd?

I know when I'm in a crowded environment I spend much less time browsing and just grab the stuff I need and get out the way. This sort of feels intuitive to me.

[mattkrause]

And, if you know you will be buying (say) 200 lbs of product, you probably will pick times when it'll be easy to move and load.

[toast0]

Lower customer density probably also correlates with harder to get to.

If your local farmers market is convenient to get to, maybe you go there for small orders, and if it's convenient for you, it's likely convenient for many. If your local market is hard to get to, you probably don't go as often, but when you do, you get more stuff.

If the market is near dense residential, it probably gets more customer density and more small orders; if it's out in the sticks, it probably gets less customer density and larger orders. You're not driving 30 minutes round trip to get one pepper that you need right now, but you might walk a 5 minute round trip for that.

[mattkrause]

I wonder if some of this reflects wholesale/restaurant purchases vs. stuff meant for a single household.

I'd expect a business to have a PO or at least a company card/checkbook, want very specific things (vs. whatever you can get from Sysco), and to purchase early/late because their business hours overlap.

[wolpoli]

> the 'lower customer densities' twist is interesting. I wonder what creates that situation. Maybe people want to rush their purchases when in a crowd?

Another interesting question: Are people buying more food with this vendor now, thus displacing future purchases, or is the extra food ending up going to waste?

[ellisv]

I was at a store yesterday to spend some gift cards and had to wait several minutes to checkout because there was only a single employee working a register.

I could imagine vendors at a farmer’s market could easily run into a bottleneck of not being able to service customers fast enough.