(Press-News.org) CORNELL UNIVERSITY MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
FOR RELEASE: Dec. 21, 2023
Kaitlyn Serrao
607-882-1140
kms465@cornell.edu
ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell researchers partnered with New York livestock farmers to analyze transactions at farmers markets, finding that sales were better on Sundays, early in the morning, and during certain months of the year. The study, which researchers believe is the first peer-reviewed analysis of customer-level transaction data at farmers markets, gives new insights into how farmers can make markets more profitable for them.
The researchers and farmers used point-of-sale devices that record sales and process credit card payments to look at more than 26,000 transactions. The study, “Increasing Customer Purchases at Farmers Markets Using Point-of-Scale Scanner Data,” published Dec. 13 in the Journal of the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
It showed that, on average, farmers market customers spent more per purchase on Sundays compared to Saturdays. They bought more during the holiday months of March, April, November and December. The biggest sales were made at the beginning of the market or even before it opened, and then transaction totals declined substantially by hour thereafter. Ground beef was typically purchased in quantities of two pounds or more. Customers also purchased more when paying with debit or credit cards. And, when the number of transactions in a five-minute period increased, the dollars spent per transaction decreased.
“Traditional retailers like grocery stores have used scanner data for years to better inform how they should market to their customers,” said Todd Schmit, professor of applied economics and policy and co-author of the study. “For farmers, the data was just never available before. So now with the advent of new technologies, we can bring that marketing power to the farmer.”
Farmers do not just vie for customers at the market, they also compete against grocery stores that carry local food products. Plus, earlier research showed that farmers markets are the worst performing sales channel for vegetable farms in terms of sales per hour of marketing labor.
The findings lead to many specific recommendations to help farmers increase their sales. For example, farmers could attend more Sunday markets, increase product prices and volume at holidays, and bundle products like ground beef.
For additional information, read this Cornell Chronicle story.
Cornell University has dedicated television and audio studios available for media interviews.
- 30 -
END
Sunday sales reign supreme and other takeaways from review of farmers market transactions
2023-12-21
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Palliative care is underused for patients with malignant urinary obstruction
2023-12-21
Less than half of patients with malignant ureteral obstruction (MUO) – a serious complication of advanced cancer, with a poor prognosis – receive palliative care (PC) for their condition, reports a paper in the January issue of Urology Practice®, an Official Journal of the American Urological Association (AUA). The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.
Hospice care can promote patient comfort while avoiding aggressive and invasive treatments for MUO patients nearing the end ...
JCEHP supplement aims to disrupt assumptions about continuing professional development
2023-12-21
December 7, 2023 —The Journal of Continuing Education in the Health Professions (JCEHP) has published a supplement, "Conceptual Advances in Continuing Professional Development in the Health Professions," in which scholars of continuing professional development (CPD) creatively examine prevailing assumptions and propose new theoretical frameworks and empirical insights. Publication of the supplemental issue is supported by the Society for Academic Continuing Medical Education (SACME). JCEHP, the official journal of the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions, ...
Researchers awarded $3 million to develop AI to better detect aggressive prostate cancer
2023-12-21
Researchers at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have received a five-year, $3 million grant from the National Cancer Institute to identify novel cancer biomarkers and develop AI that can detect and predict aggressive prostate cancer to help avoid unnecessary treatments and their associated negative side effects.
Despite recent advancements, prostate cancer remains a common and serious health issue for men, and current methods of screening and risk assessment can often lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment. About 90% of people diagnosed with prostate cancer receive treatment, even though ...
GPCR structure: Research reveals molecular origins of function for a key drug target
2023-12-21
Through an international collaboration, scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital leveraged data science, pharmacology and structural information to conduct an atomic-level investigation into how each amino acid in the receptor that binds adrenaline contributes to receptor activity in the presence of this natural ligand. They discovered precisely which amino acids control the key pharmacological properties of the ligand. The adrenaline receptor studied is a member of the G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) family, and this family is the target of one-third of all Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drugs. Thus, understanding how ...
Structures of Parkinson’s disease-linked proteins offer a framework for understanding how they work together
2023-12-21
Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital revealed the complex structure of two Parkinson’s disease-related proteins, both of which are implicated in late-onset cases. Leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) is a protein kinase that modifies other proteins in a process called phosphorylation; Rab29, a member of the Rab GTPase family that regulates cellular trafficking, modulates the activity of LRRK2. How Rab29 and LRRK2 work synergistically to cause Parkinson’s disease remains ...
Male breast cancer diagnosis fuels groundbreaking treatment tool
2023-12-21
Doctors diagnosed Christopher Gregg, Ph.D., member of the Nuclear Control of Cell Growth and Differentiation Program at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah (the U) and neuroscientist and professor of neurobiology and human genetics at the U, with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in 2018. At that point, he started thinking of ways to improve his treatment.
“The core problem of metastatic cancer is it evolves,” says Gregg. “There may be a treatment that works today but eventually ...
NASA’s Hubble watches ‘spoke season’ on Saturn
2023-12-21
This photo of Saturn was taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope on October 22, 2023, when the ringed planet was approximately 850 million miles from Earth. Hubble's ultra-sharp vision reveals a phenomenon called ring spokes.
Saturn's spokes are transient features that rotate along with the rings. Their ghostly appearance only persists for two or three rotations around Saturn. During active periods, freshly-formed spokes continuously add to the pattern.
In 1981, NASA's Voyager 2 first photographed the ring spokes. NASA's Cassini orbiter also saw the spokes during its 13-year-long mission that ended in 2017.
Hubble continues ...
Astronomers detect seismic ripples in ancient galactic disk
2023-12-21
A new snapshot of an ancient, far-off galaxy could help scientists understand how it formed and the origins of our own Milky Way.
At more than 12 billion years old, BRI 1335-0417 is the oldest and furthest known spiral galaxy in our universe.
Lead author Dr Takafumi Tsukui said a state-of-the-art telescope called ALMA allowed them to look at this ancient galaxy in much greater detail.
“Specifically, we were interested in how gas was moving into and throughout the galaxy,” Dr Tsukui said.
“Gas is a key ingredient for forming stars and can give ...
Exercise prescription: Pioneering the "third pole" for clinical health management
2023-12-21
Professor Chen Shiyi's team at Huashan Hospital of Fudan University commented on the concept, policy, development and prospect of exercise prescription in the context of " Health for All", which was published in Research (10.34133/research.0284) under the title of " Exercise Prescription: Pioneering the “Third Pole” for Clinical Health Management".
Modern lifestyles have led to reduced physical activity and a rise in chronic diseases from a young age. Exercise ...
Inside the matrix: Nanoscale patterns revealed within model research organism
2023-12-21
Species throughout the animal kingdom feature vital interfaces between the outermost layers of their bodies and the environment. Intricate microscopic structures—featured on the outer skin layers of humans, as one example—are known to assemble in matrix patterns.
But how these complex structures, known as apical extracellular matrices (aECMs) are assembled into elaborately woven architectures has remained an elusive question.
Now, following years of research and the power of a technologically advanced instrument, University of California San Diego scientists have unraveled the underpinnings ...