Impulsive shopping? Nein, danke.
A solution by pool.farm submitted to Climate Protection Now!
The number of companies offering sustainable products is growing every day. Great news! However the cost of delivery to the end-customer (the "last-mile") is often high. We address this challenge by adopting sustainable transport patterns : organising collaborative orders, in order to organise one delivery instead of 3, 5 or more. Together, let's adopt sustainable purchasing habits!
(Pitched: 19/12/2017)
One Page Summary
pool.farm was created to enable collaborative shopping on a local level. It's free for users, we take no commission.
The inspiration comes partly from the way families shop, partly from the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture).
- (1) families typically delegate shopping to one member; for this to work the other members communicate what they want. In other words, they share their shopping lists. This enables savings in time, money, energy. This is what pool.farm does.
- (2) CSAs are organisations where individual buy from a producer on a regular basis with a pooled delivery. pool.farm is similar, without the commitment for regularity.
In both cases, there is a community benefit : individuals delegate the shopping to one member of the group.
If we receive a grant of 30,000 EUR, our suggestion would be to
- create a German version of pool.farm (currently in English)
- create / adapt tutorials
- train and hire a community manager, ideally working with Green City
- connect with a small selection of local suppliers
Our motivations behind adapting pool.farm with Munich / Green City are the following
- pool.farm enables individuals to share shopping intentions. This can be done from any business they want. pool.farm is the digital step that makes the catalogue collaborative.
- this enables efficient planning of transport by a pool member or a third party. The transport is more efficient than if pool members had organised shopping individually. In Stockholm, in the last 4 months, businesses using pool.farm saw a lower cost of transport when pooled orders were made.
- effectively, pool.farm enables relatives/friends/neighbours or a third party to organise a shopping service with virtually any webshop or supplier. pool.farm does not manage payment of the service, which can be organised through a third party (for instance, a community service run by Green City).
- pool.farm is free for the users, which means that there is room for Green City to add a small service fee if desired.
- successful testing in Stockholm, next, Munich?
On our platform, individuals can create, join or manage "pools", which is what we call a group of people who want to buy something together.
Here is a brief description of functionalities
- Members can start or join a "pool".
- In each pool, members create a "list". ("My list", below)
- The aggregation of shopping lists in a pool is a "pooled list". ("Pooled list", below)
- "pool admin" takes responsibility for ordering and payment of the "pooled list".
- "pool admin" makes sure the order arrives at the meeting point, for instance his home, office or another place.
- "pool members" pay the "pool admin" for their share of the shopping, and usually collect the shopping at a place chosen by the "pool admin".
- On the "admin" page, the "pool admin" can view and edit individual shopping lists, communicate with members, keep track of payment and collection.
- Businesses can upload a catalogue on pool.farm, to make it easier for their customers to create a list.
We look forward to pool.farm in Munich!
