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Pay in Advance & Draw Down Your Balance


I didn’t get this set up in time for last night’s email, but it’s all in place now.

Many of you have wanted to pay by credit card, instead of having to tote around cash or checks. It’s not feasible for us to take credit cards during the order pickup, but I’ve enabled the next best thing.

On the website, on the “Your Account” page, you’ll see some new information on pre-payments. Here’s the details:

  • You can put money in your account using credit card or checks via PayPal (even if you don’t have a PayPal account)
  • When the payment goes through, I’ll put the money in your Locally Grown account
  • Orders you place after that will draw down on your balance, just as if you were using a gift certificate
  • You’ll get to skip the payment line at pickups

Also, there’s two important stipulations:

  • To make it work efficiently, please pay at minimum $100. You get to set the exact amount
  • To cover the processing fees, I will deduct 3% or the exact fee, whichever is less. The current fee PayPal charges me to process a payment is 2.9% + 30 cents.

We’ve been using the account balance system to manage gift certificates and volunteer work credits for some time, and other markets operate on a 100% pre-pay system. It works very well. For example, if items you order (and are charged for) are not able to be filled, the money gets automatically added back to your account.

We’re not moving to a mandatory pre-pay system, so you’ll still be able to pay with cash or check when you pick up. This is just an added convenience for those who wish to use it.

If you have any questions, just let me know!