Shopping communities (also known as basket communities, bag communities, batyu communities) are groups organized on a voluntary basis in which local food producers and buyers come into direct contact. In shopping communities, in addition to the above two groups, there is a need for participants who organize the formation and operation of the community.
Shopping communities are self-organizing, self-governing groups. It makes sense to create a community when self-organization and self-determination are on the ground of the community. Self-organization is one of the strongest forms of organization. This is because it does not depend on economic circumstances to the same extent as other organizational solutions. It is the awareness of the people who make up the community and the people who organize the life of the community that most determines how the community works.
There are a number of small steps to launching a shopping community. The first and most important question is how to create an organizing team.
Until the opening, a number of things need to be organized. You can find out more about this under ‘Additional conditions for starting shopping communities’.
In the following, we have tried to list the most important topics that are needed to start a shopping community. What is described here is non-binding, our suggestions are obviously recommendations. We believe that every community can create systems and rules for its own operation.
Each community will be strong if it develops its own operating systems. It is very important that the local community processes the following topics and provides answers to them! This will ensure that the local community will see the shopping community as their own, and with this method you can mobilize far more local resources than if you wanted to take over a system that was already established somewhere. We need to learn from examples that work elsewhere. From there, it is worth dropping many good examples and adapting it to ourselves, to yourself. It is also worth learning from the mistakes made by others.
That’s why we’re going to organize a network between shopping communities. But everyone has to take their own steps. No one will organize a shopping community for you.
If we look at the organizational background, the first question is to stay an informal team or choose one of the existing organizational types. Due to the domestic legal environment, we do not recommend the first option, because we will encounter a lot of legal difficulties then. (eg money management) If someone wants to organize a shopping community as a primary producer, as a small producer, there is no problem as long as they only sell their own products through this channel. As soon as another producer wants to join him, the situation starts to get complicated. What is entering is that this is already a commercial activity, which they can only carry out as an entrepreneurial activity, with all its requirements. Thus, during the trade, VAT also enters the picture, which makes the price of local products more expensive.
The shopping community seeks to deliver multiple products from multiple producers to many local consumers. In the early days, there were communities where an excell spreadsheet was sent out for this purpose, but we can easily see that this is not a comfortable method for either the producer or the consumer. A system needs to be set up that can integrate this wide range of tasks and that helps both to organize the handover processes on a regular basis and to carry out other communication between the producer and the buyer. Another important function is e.g. serving customer feedback and evaluations.
The establishment of the IT system is one of the critical points for the operation of Hungarian shopping communities. Most communities don’t have the money to start developing a serious software. But you have no experience of what this program should know. The practice so far has been that every community has somehow solved this on a basic level. There were places where a volunteer understood webshop programming and created an interface with basic features. There were those who bought a system that worked for others.
When thinking about the design of an IT system, it is also worth keeping in mind that these systems must also be operated and developed.
We have developed a new webshop software that, based on the experience we have accumulated since 2013, includes as many functions as possible and is suitable for everyone to adapt to their own image. The essence of our offer is that it is not necessary to purchase the software in order to use it, we only ask for a usage fee that covers the costs of maintenance and development.
In this case, the maintenance of the shopping community webshop software is co-financed by several communities, so each community incurs less cost than if they solved it themselves. In addition, development based on shared experience results in a stronger system than stand-alone, isolated attempts.
There are also several aspects to consider in this regard. Let’s look at this from the customers: today, as a customer, we love being able to make our purchases in one place. We don’t like to go separately for bread, dairy, vegetables or meat. So it’s worth planning the selection to include as many different types of food on offer as possible.
Unfortunately, it is now a rare town where everything is produced by local producers, from bakery to capital meat. It is not even the case that all the basic vegetables can be found in the offer of local producers. Under domestic conditions, the presence of about 50 vegetables would be ideal.
First, it’s worth making a list of what people in the town would need throughout the year to get food of the right quality and quantity. Then let’s start mapping out what everything producers produce locally, in our locality and its catchment area. If something is missing, start asking questions in neighboring settlements. Let's not get bitter at the beginning! Probably in most places we will be faced with the ruins of local food production. Of course, in some settlements there will presumably be no shortage of certain plants. Makón probably has plenty of onions. But we may no longer get a local product from broccoli, squash, or dairy products. At this point, it is very important to look at the shortcomings as opportunities. As soon as it becomes clear what products are missing from the settlement, it is a valuable knowledge for producers and prospective producers.
If there is a community, there are producers and products, and there are prospective buyers, then we need to figure out how the products will reach customers.
There are communities where a mini market is provided to growers at a specific time once a week. The producers bring the ordered porticoes here, and the customers come here for them too. The advantage of this method is that if the producer has a surplus, he can sell in addition to the orders. For this system we have to provide benches, a covered place, or other infrastructure, such as washbasins. The downside is that it takes up producers ’time, but at the same time leaves little work for the volunteers. And the bored volunteer will sooner or later fall behind.
The next option is to invent a delivery process where volunteers first take orders from the producer and then distribute them according to customers. To do this, we need to provide a closed and heated room. You also need scales, crates, shelves, tables to have everything you need to sort your products. And if a product that requires refrigeration is included, we will also need refrigerators, and a thermometer in the refrigerator, so that if NÉBIH checks us, everything will be fine.
If you don’t want to constantly run our community out of donations or grant money, it’s worth developing a business model for that. The business model is not only useful if you want to make a for-profit company. Although shopping communities operate on a non-profit basis around the world, the operation of a community must also be funded. Here, too, there are many kinds of costs: Rents, accounting, overheads, sometimes investment costs, and we should also give benefits to volunteers. Although these are not monetary, they cost money, such as a drink, a sandwich, or community-building trips.
To design the business model, we recommend the Canvas model, which helps you rethink not only finances, but all the processes at which a community operates.
Joint thinking and planning can be very helpful in this case as well. What a community develops can be very strong. It is no coincidence that the development methods of common companies are published in the development methods of more and more companies.
Of course, money is a delicate subject. It is suitable for us people to compare this with each other. But this cannot be spared and is an excellent opportunity for trust to develop in the community.