Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Our technology builds a digital bridge between small to midsize farmers and consumers, while simultaneously collecting valuable, real-time data on the desires and expectations of consumers. Opportunities facilitated by our product include creative place making, direct-to-consumer agricultural economies, agritourism, e-commerce innovations that connect farmers with consumer markets, and off-farm value-added agricultural development. During Phase I, we determined the feasibility of new technology for customers and small and midsize farmers to provide sustainable direct-to-consumer sales in profitable ways through determining the key features to develop into our digital e-commerce App to agricultural products and agrotourism. During Phase II, we develop these features into an easy-to-use digital application to support farmers using the application and driving consumers to the marketplace. Successful completion of the Phase II objectives will set the stage from product launch and commercialization. Our technology overcomes the limitations of existing solution to provide economic activities will directly benefit farmers by providing a direct-to-consumer virtual marketplace for agricultural products, increasing awareness of agriculture by urban customers, and providing new sources of income for agricultural producers. Our project advances the goals of Topic 8.12 Research Priority 2, Development of New Marketing Strategies for Small and Midsize Farms.
Animal Health Component
30%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
10%
Applied
30%
Developmental
60%
Goals / Objectives
The overarching goal of Phase II is to finalize the go-to market version of LocalCart platform (www.localcart.net) and GetawayLocal app and website (www.getawaylocal.com) in 6 TOs:TO 1. Implement one-cart shopping integration on LocalCart from multiple businesses. The one-cart for LocalCart will provide the basis to integrate larger volumes of inventory, which will allow us to scale the commercialization stages more quickly and efficiently. Then we will begin expanding our service offerings further to assist SMSFs with additional types of sales and marketing support and integrate other sales systems like Square and Clover, in Phase III+.TO 2. Finalize design of the Activity+Event engine for GetawayLocal. We will automate the process of providing activities and events information for consumers to serve as a marketing engine to further increase revenue opportunities for SMSFs. We see this as providing the foundations to have smartened automations and services to SMSFs and agritourism businesses in advantageous ways to drive sales of products and experiences.TO 3. Develop consumer profile system components that enable personalized activity and events notifications. In Phase I, we demonstrated our ability to produce the automations that personalize marketing in the go-to version of the app. Now we need to establish the correlations between consumer datapoints to personalize, and datapoints that we correlate activities and events, to begin the process of promoting activities and events to consumers on personalized bases.TO 4. Enable SMSFs, producers, and agritourism businesses to upload information about their business, products, activities, and events in user accounts. We will determine the parameters for data and information about SMSFs, products, and agritourism businesses, for inclusion on LocalCart and/or GetawayLocal. This includes a working foundation enabling businesses to upload information in easy-to-use ways, either online or email, which we publish on the online sales platform or app. We will onboard products to build an inventory on LocalCart by bringing SMSFs, producers, and businesses into the LocalCart and GetawayLocal system.TO 5. Refine the activities-and-events engine for the web and app to drive sales of SMSF products and agritourism experiences. We will refine a searchable activities and events engine for use on the web or app. The datapoints that we researched for personalized notifications was developed into search filters in Phase I, so that the consumers will search based on types of datapoints they favor. Proving the engine on the web enables more consumer engagement. Having them on the web and the app provides a "stickiness" factor for consumers, so they keep coming back to GetawayLocal to find things to do and this generates the power for the marketing engine to drive sales of SMSF products and agritourism experiences.TO 6. Develop Online Marketplace Presence for onboarded food products and the A&E Engine to drive sales of local foods through web SEO, SERP, and product-level SEO. We will onboard food products and develop the online platform and app to have the datapoints needed to promote the top search engine rankings. This includes website Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Results Page (SERP), and product-level SEO. We will use generative AI techniques to produce optimized content and use deep digital marketing techniques to promote organic search engine results for SMSF products and agritourism experiences on LocalCart and GetawayLocal.
Project Methods
TO 1. Implement one-cart shopping integration on LocalCart from multiple businesses. Task 1, starting with feasibility analysis and determination from Phase I, produce blueprint for functionality and programming to implement one-cart integration.Task 2, implement the integration on a cloud-based environment to enable high performance in terms of responsiveness at an affordable cost basis.Task 3, test the software build to ensure errorless processing of transactions.TO 2. Finalize design of the Activity+Event engine for GetawayLocal app and website.Task 1, develop the first round of GUI prototypes using Figma that produces a clickable prototype so that consumers will navigate through prototype GUIs.Task 2, gather feedback about user experience, functionality, and performance.Task 3, revise the GUI designs and continue gathering feedback until we reach a goal of simple and easy to use, that the consumer finds enjoyable and valuable.Task 4, identify example types of sources of A&E information that will be used to train machine learning (ML) with Google ML, so that we will automate the process of extracting information from newsletters, data gathered from websites, and emails to automatically populate entries of data that correspond with details of A&Es. We have backup assistance from DataDrivenWV with ML experts (See Budget Letter).Task 5, program the engine logic to store, retrieve, and filter A&E information that is provided from the machine learning procedure and an input form. This will be implemented in the low-code/SQL environment with the cloud service.TO 3. Develop consumer profile system components that enable personalized notifications.Task 1, Analytical research of TO2 results from Tasks 1-5 and Phase I functionality R&D to develop settings and enable in the go-to market app and back-end system.Task 2, Produce programming process flow diagrams for implementation.TO4. Enable SMSFs, producers, and agritourism businesses to upload information about their business, products, activities, and events in user accounts.Task 1, Analytical research of TO1, TO2, and Phase I functionality results to develop settings, enable in the app, and implement in the back-end system.Task 2, Implement customizable SMSF/producer/business profile accounts.Task 3, Onboard products onto LocalCart through results of TO1.Task 4, We will work with our SMSFs, producers, and agritourism businesses to determine best selections for promotion of products, activities, and events online.Task 5, Begin actively promoting on social media and through partnerships the products, activities, and events of our SMSFs, producers, and businesses. We have trade secret software (See Commercialization Plan) to increase the rate of growing the number of followers on our social media accounts. We will do spotlights on social media and our community newsletters of products, activities, and events as well as showcase farmers and businesses to drive engagement from consumers.TO 5. Refine the activities and events (A&E) engine for the web and app to drive sales of SMSF products and agritourism experiences.Task 1, design the functionality of the engine for use in the app and website.Task 2, implement, test, and refine for app and online usage.TO 6. Develop Online Marketplace Presence for onboarded food products and the A&E Engine to drive sales of local foods through web SEO, SERP, and product-level SEO. Develop full compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on websites and app.Task 1, research tags to boost search engine ranking and for products.Task 2, program SEO, SERP, and product-level SEO and test the results.