How Customized Shares Work in GrownBy

How Customized Shares Work in GrownBy

New for 2024-2025, GrownBy offers customizable shares for shoppers. For a quick overview of customizable shares, take a look at our FAQ. The following article dives deeper into customizable shares and how to set them up. 

How it works

Customizable shares are built and sold on GrownBy like traditional CSA shares. Farms will add their products to GrownBy and indicate to the system which products should be included in the customization each week. Before the season, farms communicate their customization window open and close to our staff. Each distribution, shoppers will receive an email letting them know that their customization window is open. It looks like this: 





Customers will either click the button in their email or simply login to GrownBy and will have an opportunity to adjust/customize the share during the “customization window” set by the farm. They can also set or change their preferences at any time simply by recording their preferences in their account. If they do not adjust their share by the end of the customization window, they will receive a share determined by the farm’s inventory and any previously entered preferences. 

Once the customization window closes, farms can print or modify harvest lists from the Daily summary. Farms can print labels for each customer. GrownBy can export labels in a variety of forms to be printed with a thermal printer or on a deskjet/inkjet printer. 

  1. Before the customization Window Opens: The farm adjusts product inventory based on what is available that week and makes sure that all items for customization are added to the CSA Group. If a farm wants to exclude an item from being included in a customizable share, they can keep it out of the CSA Group.
    1. Farms can also “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” a given product – Products with a “thumbs up” will be the first to go into customers’ shares. Products with a “thumbs down” will not be placed in the shares at first. Customers still have the final say – they can remove products or add products as they please.
  2. When the customization window opens: GrownBy sends emails to customers at the start of the customization window. If customers login directly to the app or desktop versions of GrownBy during this time, they will see a pop-up and banner letting them know that they should customize.
  3. During the Customization window: Customers adjust their shares. If they want additional items over the value of their week’s share, they can use a payment method on file to enjoy those items. The customer completes their order by checking out. The value of their share is deducted from their total automatically. If they don’t reach the value of their share for the week, that value carries over as Farm Credit.
  4. When the Customization window closes: 
    1. Any order that a customer didn’t edit is finalized based on the farm’s inventory and any preferences that the customer has saved on their account.
    2. After each order is complete (whether when the customer checks out when their order completes or because the customization window closes) final order Notifications are sent to customers.
  5. After the Customization window closes: 
    1. Farms export their harvest list, filtered by standard products, and harvest/pack per the list
    2. Farms print labels, packs boxes, and distribute! 
Still have questions? We have answers. Email GrownBy support directly at support@grownby.app, or schedule a one-on-one call with one of our team members. A real human with farming experience will get back to you as soon as possible!



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