Farmers Business Network Launches Amazon Partnership
At its Farmer 2 Farmer conference, Farmers Business Network (FBN) announced a new partnership with Amazon. Amazon offers “Business Accounts” bulk pricing on more than 5 million products.
FBN members qualify for 20% off their first $500 spent as Amazon Business customers. Users must register for their Amazon Business account by March 13 to qualify for this offer. The Amazon promotion includes outdoor power tools, oils & fluids; outdoor apparel, tools, and more.
According to Farm Journal research conducted in September of 2018, with 1,000 farmer respondents, 8% bought some of their crop inputs online (specifically seed, crop protection and/or fertilizer products) in 2018. Looking ahead to 2019, 13% of respondents expected to buy some of their crop inputs online.
FBN launched FBN Direct for online input buying in 2017. The online pricing tools and purchasing portal are only available to members—and FBN says it has more than 7,000 farmer members in the U.S. and Canada. In late October, FBN told AgPro about 1/3 of its members purchased inputs via its online offering. This is flat compared with the number they provided in early 2018.
In a statement to AgPro, FBN staff said that with the launch of the F2F Genetics Network, they expected the percent of members doing business with FBN online to increase “substantially.” The company introduced its first corn and soybean seed offering in August of 2018.
In the same statement, the company said “Farmers join FBN for a multitude of reasons - agronomic analytics, seed & input price intelligence, buying seed and chemical, crop marketing among others - but the overarching reason improving their bottom line and wanting to be treated fairly by their partners.”
Read more about online options for farmers here.