Paysans.fr: Sampling the goods

Crafty use of the medium craftily builds sales and loyalty, while stopping the company wasting its money.

The Site

Paysans.fr is an online ‘farmers’ market’ for fresh produce from south-west France, delivering with a small fleet of refrigerated vans to consumers in its region and the Paris area.

As well as ordering from the site consumers can sign up online to le Club Testeurs, a tasting group that Paysans.fr uses to test new products before they are offered on its market. Each week club members receive a free product sample with their delivery in return for providing an evaluation. Results – good and bad – from the tests are published on pop-up minisites, including with charts to show how the product scored on a scale of one to five for various qualities. Results of all the tests since the site was launched 18 months ago (as Autrement Bon) can be consulted online and customers can follow links to the ones that have been selected to go on sale.

The Takeaway

The French are good at thinking up new ways of exploiting the web. Another example here, which uses the medium craftily to build sales and loyalty, and also to stop the company wasting its money.

The testers’ club is a vehicle for genuine market research, getting customers to do your tasting for you (look at the thumbs down on a brand of bottled water featured on the site to see how useful that can be). It uses the web’s interactivity to assemble and process feedback quickly, and also its storage capacity to keep a back catalogue of tests.

More subtly, the site exploits the medium’s ability to build loyalty and even a community. People who sign up to become testers are almost becoming employees of the company (paid in terrine or cheese) and will inevitably feel a sense of belonging. It is no surprise that the site also has a tolerably active forum – Paysans.fr is already or will become that rare beast, a successful commercially-driven community site.

First published on 29 June, 2004