What Markets Actually Gave Us (That We’ll Have to Replace)

Last week’s post was the spreadsheet half of this decision: revenue, cash flow, outreach, traffic. This is the other half: the benefits of farmers markets that don’t fit in a spreadsheet. I’d rather say it out loud now than discover it after we’ve stepped back and the table’s gone.

The customers who come back

Plenty of people buy once and we never see them again. That’s fine. But there’s another group that comes back week after week, whether they buy or not. They stop by to say hello. They tell us a story about how a product helped them with a skin problem, or how they gave one as a gift to someone they love.

That’s what I’d miss most. At a market we get to see, on an emotional level, what our hard work actually does for people. Online, that shows up as an order number.

Why we started

It’s not one specific moment, it’s a pattern. Over and over, a mother walks up to our booth looking for something that might help her child with skin problems like my daughter’s. Those conversations fill us with more pride and satisfaction than anything else we do, because that’s the main reason we started Celeste Naturals in the first place. Getting to help someone else find the same relief, and the same joy that comes with it, is the whole point.

I don’t know how to replicate that on a product page.

What I’d miss in the numbers

At a market, I watch someone’s face as they work through the display. I hear what they like and what they don’t, in real time. With wholesale numbers, I can’t tell whether a product is moving slowly because people aren’t interested, because the description is unclear, or because of something else entirely. Trying to decode a buyer’s choices was hard enough with one account. We also just need a lot more volume before the numbers tell us anything, which a face at a table does without any volume at all.

The community

Our fellow vendors are great. They’re gracious and encouraging, and there’s real camaraderie because we’re all in a similar boat. We live in a warm small-business community where everyone wants the group to succeed. Even when another business works in our niche, we see it as a chance to differentiate ourselves and push to be better.

It’s worth being precise about what we do and don’t have elsewhere. We’re members of the Alpharetta Business Association, and everyone there has been welcoming, and we get real benefits from participating. But we’re one member among many. It’s not the same as making a proponent out of a city planner because they tried our soap and loved it. That kind of evangelist comes from the table. The relationships we’ve built through markets work differently than the ones we build at business events.

What it costs

Here’s the part that complicates the whole “we’ll miss it” story. Markets are very hard on Chrissy because of her Crohn’s disease. Often she stops eating 12 to 18 hours before an event, especially the early-morning ones, because her body won’t cooperate otherwise. At home, near everything she needs, she can work hard and stress a lot less than she can when she’s away from the comforts of home.

So the thing that gives us so much also takes a lot from one of us. She’s on the same page about stepping back, with maybe even more determination than I have. We’re both grateful for the local customers and for the organizers who believed we’d make their market better. Both of those things are true at once.

What we’re actually afraid of

Mostly, we’re afraid of losing the community we’ve built by showing up. That’s the emotional one.

The practical fear is just as real. Market income is small but consistent. What replaces it is unknown and inconsistent, at least until we find a wholesale rhythm and build out the portfolio, though it has far greater earning potential. And this will be the second year in a row where the holiday quarter is our busiest by a mile. If we dropped every market and couldn’t replace that income next year, it wouldn’t just be concerning. It would be the death knell of our ability to continue to operate, the end of something we’ve put so much effort, sweat, tears, stress, and love into.

That’s exactly why we’re not leaping. We know what has to be true first. But even when it’s the right call, stepping back isn’t a pure win. You can be sure a decision is correct and still miss what you’re leaving.