The emergence of the agriculture flash sale website

March 12, 2012 - PRLog -- What do flash sale websites that sell fashion, wine, or gadgets have in common with farming and agriculture?  Not much.  But in the world of online ecommerce, what works in one industry may work in another.  Flash sales have come to agriculture and promise savings for those in farming and agriculture while providing a new outlet and sales channel for agriculture products.

What is a flash sale?
A flash sale is simply a short-term online sale.  The sale is usually 10-50% off and lasts a day to a week.  The benefit to consumers is a steady stream of information on new products and a discount on each purchase.  The benefit to the seller is instant access to all members or visitors to the flash sale website.  It most cases it has proven to increase brand recognition and provide a bump in sale volumes.

Flash sale websites started in 2004 and have rapidly become a mainstay in online retail.  Woot.com and its many subsidiaries were arguably the first to jump in with daily flash sales on electronics and every other consumer gadget and product imaginable.  Now there are a slew of flash sale sites offering sales on travel, wine, New York fashion, and home décor and furnishings, and in many other industries with a well defined consumer base.

To marketers, new methods that reach well-defined demographics with consistent incentives to buy make perfect sense.  That is why there has been a boom in flash sale and daily deal websites that have proliferated in the past few years, some with great success.  Using ecommerce to reach that demographic in an interesting, efficient, and social way have increasingly won over traditional and outdated channels because the interactions are instant and more interactive.  

Agriculture is about as well defined a market that exists.  Although everyone in the world uses the results of agriculture production in one way or another, only farmers or ranchers are directly involved in the purchasing of farm products, gear, seeds, and technology - and they are a well known and powerful purchasing group.   Agriculture flash sale websites can save money for farmers and also provide a new outlet for sellers looking to interact with farmers looking to make purchases.

Can flash sales work in any industry?  
Probably not.  Some industries that don’t work well in the old ecommerce channels will likely not work in the new ecommerce channels - that is until someone comes along and changes the entire channel.  It is unlikely that the automobile industry or the insurance industry will adapt to a flash sale model, yet any industry with set of necessary products and a well-defined customer is fair game to the new innovations in ecommerce.

Can there be such a thing as a location-based flash sale?  
Yes there can.  In farming, it is all about location.  Location dictates your soil, your climate, and the crops you grow.  The merging of flash sales with location is a new model - not only for agriculture, but for anyone.  Yet, agriculture works well with a location-based system.  Whether you are a farmer in Iowa that needs a specific corn maturity or a dairy farmer in Indiana, your location directs what you do and what you need to purchase to make your farm run.  In fact, agriculture is the perfect industry for the emergence of a location-based flash sale website for farmers that require unique products dependent upon their farm’s location and activity.

Granted “flash sale” and “location-based” are buzz words thrown around that don’t mean much out of context, but at the end of the day online sales on things you need to run a farm specific to your location is a good thing - a good enough thing to give a try.

AgSimple.com is a location-based flash sale website for farming and agriculture.  It is currently in six Midwestern states and has plans to add four more states in the next month.  To view the current sale, visit www.agsimple.com and select your location.  To sell with AgSimple and reach a new audience, visit www.agsimple.com/seller-sign-up/

Colin Shepherd is the founder of AimsBio, Inc., and its new service AgSimple.com.  His family owns a 700 acre corn and soybean farm near Beloit, WI.  He has a PhD in Plant Genetics and a MBA from Iowa State University.