People drive to a farm shop on purpose, and before they drive they check: is it open today (what the farmer says, not what Google guessed), how do we find the right gate down a lane with no signs, is there coffee, can the dog come, is there anything for the kids to look at, and what is actually in season. Websites for farm shops in Dublin and the counties around it mostly show a beautiful photograph of a field and leave the person guessing on all six. Instagram, where most farm shops put their energy, is great for the strawberries and no use at all for the hours.
Open Thursday to Sunday, and which gate
Farm shop hours change with the season: weekends only in winter, six days in summer, closed for a fortnight in January to draw breath, open late for the pumpkin weeks. The site carries the current hours and the Google listing matches them, including the bank holidays, and you change both yourself when the season turns.
Then the gate. Google often drops the pin on the farmhouse, not the shop, and a family ends up in your mother’s yard. The page gives the Eircode of the shop gate, a photograph of the entrance from the road, a landmark (“the red gate after the church”), where to park and whether the lane suits a low car. We set the pin properly on the listing, and the ways it goes wrong are in how to get your business on Google Maps.
What is in season is the whole pitch
Nobody drives twenty minutes for a shop; they drive for the first strawberries, the new potatoes, the Brussels sprouts on the stalk, the eggs laid this morning. A “this week in the shop” box at the top of the page, updated on Thursday morning from your phone through the edit page, is the most valuable thing on the site. Below it sits the permanent list: your own produce, the meat if you have a counter, the dairy, the bakery, the cafe menu, veg boxes, and whose else’s food you stock, with their names, because local honey and a named cheese are part of why people come.
Photograph the produce on the morning it was picked, the shop inside, the family, the field with the shop in the distance. Keep posting the same pictures to Instagram; the site is where Google sends people, and it needs to say when you are open and what is on the shelf.
Christmas orders without the notebook
Turkeys, hams, spiced beef, geese and hampers are ordered from November, and most farm shops still take them on the back of a box. An order form on the site asks for the name, phone, product, size and collection day, takes a deposit by card, sends a confirmation, and gives you a list you can print. Collection slots on the 23rd and 24th stop the queue out the gate. A cut-off date on the page stops the call on the 22nd. The same form takes Easter lamb and Mother’s Day orders with the words changed.
Gift vouchers sell on the site in December and are emailed to the buyer within minutes, which is how a butcher or a farm shop turns a stranger’s Christmas present into a new regular in February. Deposits and vouchers are both in Complete, and the practical side is in how to take deposits online in Ireland.
Pumpkins, strawberries and a quiet January
Pick your own in June and July needs its own page: the days the field is open, the rules, whether to bring punnets, what it costs by the kilo, and a line about wellies. Pumpkin picking in October has become a booked event on busy weekends, and timed slots on the site stop the car park becoming the story. Santa, a Christmas market, a lambing weekend in spring: each gets a page that comes back every year with the dates changed.
January is for closing, and the site should say so plainly, with the reopening date and the vouchers still on sale.
What we need from the farm
Your opening hours by season. The shop gate’s Eircode and a photo of the entrance. Your produce list and what is yours versus stocked. The Christmas order products and your deposit terms. The cafe menu. The year’s events. A dozen photos. The name of the person who will do the Thursday update.
Plan and price
Complete is the plan for a farm shop taking Christmas orders and selling vouchers: €1,499 to set up and €100 a month, VAT on top, no contract, with the managed Google listing and the review follow-up included. A small farm gate shop open two days a week can run on Essentials at €499 and €50 a month. Farms outside Dublin start with a video call. The full breakdown is on the pricing page.