BarrioMercados: technology that shortens the chain

What we buy for the house usually passes through several hands before it reaches the table. Each step has its costs and its reasons, but when the chain is long, the people who produce and the people who buy end up far apart, and neither sees clearly how the price is set.

BarrioMercados was born to shorten that distance. Here is what we do, how we do it and what we are not.

The problem is not the people, it is the chain

A producer in the area may have fresh vegetables, eggs or bread just out of the oven, and a few kilometers away there are hundreds of families who would buy them. What is missing is coordination: the neighborhood's demand is scattered, each family shops on its own, and a producer can't afford a trip for a single order.

That is where the in-between steps come from: someone who collects from the farms, someone who transports, someone who distributes, someone who sells. Many of those links do real work. The problem is that the more steps there are, the further the producer is from the buyer and the harder it is to see how the price is made. We explain it with figures in Middleman margins.

What technology does

BarrioMercados uses technology to do in a single step the coordination that is usually split across several:

• It pools demand by area. Neighbors see the offers available in their area and join them from their phone.
• It works with advance orders. Each offer has dates: orders come in first and delivery comes after, so the producer knows how much was ordered before heading out.
• It groups deliveries by area. When an offer closes, orders are sorted by neighborhood and the producer knows what to bring and where.

One step between the farm and your home

In BarrioMercados' offers, the chain comes down to one step:

1. The producer sets the price and creates an offer with product, quantity and dates. BarrioMercados reviews it and publishes it in the approved areas.
2. You see the final price from the start and pay with SINPE Móvil from your phone.
3. BarrioMercados issues the electronic invoice for your purchase.
4. We deliver in your area's delivery window, to the address you registered. Often the producer brings the orders on their own route, and BarrioMercados answers for them arriving.

Our part, what it costs to run the platform, take payments, invoice and look after you, is included in the price you see.

The supportive side

BarrioMercados also has a board for sales between neighbors. There, a neighbor posts something to sell to other neighbors in their micro-zone, like the bread they bake or what they harvest in the backyard, and takes the payment directly. On those sales we charge no commission and never touch the money: we work like the neighborhood's community board.

Either way, what you pay goes to people in your area: nearby producers or your own neighbors.

Why buying together matters more when the economy slows, we explain in When the economy slows, the neighborhood comes together.

What we are and what we are not

We say it the same way as in our Terms and Conditions (in Spanish):

• We are not an online marketplace where third parties sell to you. In our offers, the seller is BarrioMercados: we sell in our own name, take the payment, issue the electronic invoice and answer to you for the purchase, as Costa Rica's consumer law (Ley 7472) provides.
• Producers supply our offers under an agreement with BarrioMercados. Each offer shows who the producer is, so you know where what you buy comes from.
• The producer sets the price, and our part is included in the price you see.
• Between neighbors, we are only the board. We are not a party to those sales, we don't receive the payments and we don't issue invoices for them.

Join us

We are starting in the district of Concepción, in La Unión, Cartago.

• If you produce in the area and want to supply BarrioMercados' offers, tell us what you produce.
• If you are a neighbor, read what your neighborhood gains from a shorter chain in From the producer to your table.
• If you want to bring BarrioMercados to your district, write to us at soporte@barriomercados.cr.