By Kyle LaMalfa, People’s Market

Immediacy – Harvest the food immediately before it is sold. For food at a farmers market, freshness is a top reason to pay more for the product. People pay more to see a movie on opening night rather than later on video.

Personalization – Recognize repeat customers, personalize their experience. Saving the biggest fruit for a repeat customer or remembering their name is a way to personalize their experience. Mr. Mac can sell you a suit but a tailor sells you a personal style.

Authenticity – Be able to show that you are selling the real deal. Customers will pay extra for an authentic product. Consider certifying as an organic grower or applying for other official quality designations. Let your customers know that you grow locally - display a picture of your farm. Official NBA jerseys are much more expensive than the same thing sold at a swap meet.

Interpretation – Be an expert on everything you sell. Know the history of your varieties. Prepare recipes for your customers to experiment with. Be able to describe the flavor of your food in explicit detail. Express the passion you feel towards your product.

Accessibility – Be available to your customers by being easy to access. >For some vendors, this means being at the same market, in the same place every week. For other vendors, it means being in every market during the brief window of their harvest. Reducing the burden of accessing your product makes it more valuable.

Embodiment – Package your products to frame their beauty. Packaging can be simple or complex. For labeled products like honey, a high quality label gives the customer confidence that the product was created by a professional. For non-labeled products, abundance is often the best way to package the product: "The more you have, the more you sell."

Patronage – Be a cause that customers want to support. Customers want to pay creators of great products as a token of their appreciation. Demonstrate integrity, honesty, and impressive standards of quality that turn passers-by into raving fans.

Findability – Produce rare, unusual, or especially delicious varieties that are hard to find. During summer months, it’s not unusual to find Roma tomatoes priced at 3lbs for $1 at some markets. But rareness, uniqueness and flavor can increase the price much higher when the food is no longer a commodity.

Adapted from: Kelly, Kevin “Better than Free” http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kelly08/kelly08_index.html