Introducing: My Fruit Market (Looking For Vendors!)

[tru]

Hi everyone, if you saw my last comment on the post about dropshipping, I am getting closer to making myfruitmarket.com live.
I hope you like it, I've spent a HUGE amount of time on this project and would love feedback!

Here is a storefront (Shoutout Jaboticaba45): https://s5sulm97rsw7tb54-75884462372.shopifypreview.com/collections/jaboticaba45
and here is the main page: link died: https://s5sulm97rsw7tb54-75884462372.shopifypreview.com

since my last update, I've changed some things including:
- added menus to individual shops
- added calendar function
- added some artwork
- embedded digitized tropical.theferns.info dashboard under 'Projects' at the bottom of the page

main things I'm still working on (in order of priority):
- optimizing website for mobile viewing
- adding a button to sign up for email updates for specific vendors
- auction tab
- animations / making some of them smoother lol

as well as cleaning up the store and getting the Plants and Deals tab filled out as more vendors sign up

In return for having a place on my website without paying the $39/month in shopify and dealing with all the backend management, newsletters for your store at no cost to you, your plants showing up as recommended/related when customers visit other shops in the website, links to your social media/other stores i.e. etsy, shopify, etc, and SEO on your products to boost organic traffic, I only ask for 5% of the revenue on an order after shopify has taken their 2.9% + 30c cut!

If you are interested in joining as a vendor: Please text me at 214-663-4410 or email me at trumansacco@hotmail.com
the following information for each product:

- at least 1 picture (or more!)
- a name (including cultivar information)
- a price
- a quantity
- a weight OR a flat shipping rate
- any descriptions/notes that you'd like to add (or can leave blank)

for more details on submitting your products and the breakdown of a sale read this thread here: https://tropicalfruitforum.com/index.php?topic=51092.0

If you have any questions or concerns at all, please ask!


Sorry if this post was kind of redundant; the next time you hear from me will be the live announcement 
Thanks for your time,
- Truman

[Tropical7B]

Ah, the Amazon of fruit trees - love the idea!

[Jaboticaba45]

What a great service offered to the forum.
Sheesh! This is fire!

[Bobooshki]

Very cool - I actually developed a mobile application for this on the Google Play Store around 10 years ago. Glad to see someone else had the idea as well as I stopped maintaining the app many years ago.

Best of luck! I had a lot of success pushing the app at farmers markets if you want to give that a go.

[brian]

One thing you may be able to do to set yourself apart is proper (zero) sales tax for states where food/seeds/fruit-trees are exempt.  My state Pennsylvania they are exempt yet Ebay, Etsy, and maybe others still charge me sales tax to buy.  Likely other states have similar rules but this is such a small market that the big marketplaces don't bother to handle it

[tru]

Ah, the Amazon of fruit trees - love the idea!

What a great service offered to the forum.
Sheesh! This is fire!

Thanks y’all!! I hope to one day even have a growers journal section (like GrowDiaries… but not just weed lol)

Very cool - I actually developed a mobile application for this on the Google Play Store around 10 years ago. Glad to see someone else had the idea as well as I stopped maintaining the app many years ago.

Best of luck! I had a lot of success pushing the app at farmers markets if you want to give that a go.

great minds think alike 🤣 good idea though; there’s a pretty big farmer’s market near me that I’ve looked into in the past, I think I’ll go to the next meet!

One thing you may be able to do to set yourself apart is proper (zero) sales tax for states where food/seeds/fruit-trees are exempt.  My state Pennsylvania they are exempt yet Ebay, Etsy, and maybe others still charge me sales tax to buy.  Likely other states have similar rules but this is such a small market that the big marketplaces don't bother to handle it

You bring up an excellent point, it’s the next beast I plan on getting into… trying to figure out how taxes work on something like this has been making my head spin. Shoutout Erie, PA and the cherry fest, fond childhood memories. As long as it’s possible to setup in Shopify I’ll make it happen!

[Thefatcuban]

One thing you may be able to do to set yourself apart is proper (zero) sales tax for states where food/seeds/fruit-trees are exempt.  My state Pennsylvania they are exempt yet Ebay, Etsy, and maybe others still charge me sales tax to buy.  Likely other states have similar rules but this is such a small market that the big marketplaces don't bother to handle it

Most states have an economic nexus requirement of either at least $100,000 or 200 separate transactions a year, so I would go even further and say, at least right now, he shouldn't be charging sales tax anywhere aside from the state he is located in.

[Oqueel]

It sounds like a good place to quickly sell off any surplus fruit. Will you be doing that too?

[tru]

It sounds like a good place to quickly sell off any surplus fruit. Will you be doing that too?

Yes! Anything and everything that trusted forum members may have to offer; I have no problem listing

I’m probably gonna redesign the plant tab as more stuff gets added / move some stuff around based on where interests end up, sneak in some more pictures and add a menu for it

Thank you!

[huertasurbanas]

Good idea

[tru]

Good idea

Thanks Marcos!!

[John B]

This is a great idea, cheaper then Etsy. Your website mentions "from reputable and trusted sellers". How are you going to manage that?

[tru]

This is a great idea, cheaper then Etsy. Your website mentions "from reputable and trusted sellers". How are you going to manage that?

Thanks! Good question, so far I'm only having this open to the forum members here that I've seen build up a reputation.

I'm not sure if there's a calculated way to approach it but for now, I'm gonna keep a -very- tight lid on who can be accepted. Preferably more on a referral basis where I've heard of you on this forum or easily verified elsewhere. I have 20-25 names in particular that I'd really like to work with and take it more on a case by case basis; I'm a stickler for seeds and will probably end up testing out some vendors that don't have as much reputation

As a security measure for bigger ticket items, instead of test ordering I could do a verification photo with the vendor name and date written on paper next to the plant in question, but really I'm not looking to accept anyone that I have even a shred of doubt about

[Enkis]

Will you ship outside US?

[tru]

Will you ship outside US?

The answer would change based on the vendor, but I'll setup a way to automatically filter stores to those that will ship to you!

[tru]

https://s5sulm97rsw7tb54-75884462372.shopifypreview.com/pages/shop-directory

Welcome TropicalPioneers to the market! They sell seedlings and are looking to diversify into houseplants too

if you're thinking about being a vendor please pm,
You don't need products ready right now necessarily; but getting the initial profile setup speeds up the process when the time comes to add fruit/seeds whatever it may be

Added some animations, still working on email block stuff. Thanks!

[tru]

Sorry for bumping but I'm not getting as much seller activity as I thought I would,
is there anything y'all would change? Is the pitch too much? % too much? Not enough being offered? Unclear? Needs to be live first?

Again you don't need products ready at the moment but getting your initial profile setup will save time for when you are ready to sell.
Let me know, really want this to work! And fr this time, you won't see me again until its live!

Thanks for your time,
- Truman

[Perplexed]

The menus and calendar function sound super useful for users, and embedding the dashboard under “Projects” is a nice touch to make the site feel more dynamic. For mobile optimization, focusing on clean navigation and quick load times will be key, especially with so much visual content.

When I was working on a similar project, I found that tools like https://pbb.design/en/website-promotion/ helped improve site visibility and organic traffic. It might be something to consider as you work on optimizing SEO for your vendors and products.

[SplorKeLZ]

Wow! this is so cool!!! i cant wait to see how everything turns out!

[Pouteria_fan]

Is this site still live? The links do not seem to work for me.