Last year we printed out sheets with lines and hung them on a clipboard on the wall. We kept chasing pens, didn’t have good materials for customers to browse, and when people signed up we didn’t have any way to take payment on the spot.
You know we’re always experimenting. Sometimes we’re stacking experiments. This time around we wanted to try for a more vibrant CSA “retail wall,” and we wanted to fix that sign-up thing. So now you can sign-up from home, or sign-up in store.
We found this iPad mount for $90 or so online. I drilled 2 holes in it and mounted it on the wall (it’s meant to be a cash register type thing). There’s a pretty ugly extension cord running below to power the device.
We made a page for our website that shows up well on this device. I set-up the iPad as a Kiosk with some Kiosk software I downloaded from the App store that focuses the iPad on a single page or set of pages and goes full-screen. I combined that Kiosk app with a trick I read about online that allows you to lock the home button. (You activate some Assisted Access settings on the iPad.)
And voila! You can read about farms right here at our “retail” display for CSAs. And you can actually sign-up for farms. You can even read (and laugh at) my made up FAQs. Don’t worry, we’ll make these real soon. But I didn’t really have a true list of FAQs so I had fun with them and used my imagination.
Obviously we’re not the first to use an iPad in-store. Our CSA program is pretty much unique, but more importantly we’re learning. We’re learning how to bridge the digital and face-to-face. How to enable you but still make the experience real, lasting, and personal. Tell us what it feels like to you.
I’m happy to see you aren’t using Marshall’s this year. He only grew about 15% of what he put in the CSAs, which I didn’t think was fair.