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The economics of pumpkin patches

thehustle.co

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Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#11

Post by pumpkinman »

tomrod wrote: post #8
monkeydust wrote: post #3

I went to a patch with the kids over the weekend here in UK. It was fun but when it got time to pay we joined a long queue with others having our pumpkins in a wheel barrow. When we got to the front we had to match our pumpkins to a template based on size (cost from 50p to £10) and then a cashier would tally up the total. I got chatting to the owner whilst waiting and he was open to a more tech smarter way to pay to…

Here is my thought process: > - Move your barrow under a camera. Minimum $5k, closer to $25k, to set physical hardware, network, queueing line and instructions > - It would take a picture and through image recognition identify and classify pumpkins based on size. $100k+ capex to get implemented model on hardware, sufficient training samples + training expertise, QA, etc. Ongoing opex for maintenance (sun, weather), m…

Is this unironically how you speak or just because you feel you have to because you think this is how "real business men" speak?

Saying "Initial startup costs fo equipment and ongoing cost of maintenance will not see any sane sort of return" would have sufficed

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#12

Post by monkeybutton »

odyssey7 wrote: post #6
david38 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weight is the simplest by far. 50, Otherwise, build a box, and the smallest box that fit the pumpkin determines its size.

I wonder if they run into issues selling by weight. Customers are usually paying more for the visual size, not however much water a particular item has in it. Does the weight increase linearly with size? If it’s especially hollow, probably not, while an especially large and hollow pumpkin may be uncommon and should be sold for a high price. Edit: I guess a better question would be, can you predict desirable carving q…

Take a "sample" of pumpkins, weigh them, have the humans write down their prices and fit a pumpkin weight -> price model. A pumpkin is sort of a hollow shell if you discount the weight of the goop inside, so the weight should increase with the square of the diameter.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#13

Post by itronitron »

monkeydust wrote: post #3

I went to a patch with the kids over the weekend here in UK. It was fun but when it got time to pay we joined a long queue with others having our pumpkins in a wheel barrow. When we got to the front we had to match our pumpkins to a template based on size (cost from 50p to £10) and then a cashier would tally up the total. I got chatting to the owner whilst waiting and he was open to a more tech smarter way to pay to…

If each pumpkin was passed down a conveyor belt in a single file line then it's diameter could be easily measured with an array of light sensors aimed vertically which could be used to set the price in the checkout system. Different customer's orders could be separated by a board that spanned the full width of the sensor array, which would stop the conveyor until it was removed.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#14

Post by dazc »

monkeydust wrote: post #3

I went to a patch with the kids over the weekend here in UK. It was fun but when it got time to pay we joined a long queue with others having our pumpkins in a wheel barrow. When we got to the front we had to match our pumpkins to a template based on size (cost from 50p to £10) and then a cashier would tally up the total. I got chatting to the owner whilst waiting and he was open to a more tech smarter way to pay to…

Since the demand is concentrated over such a short period I guess the simplest solution would be to have one price for all?

This would encourage people to shop early as they would get the pick of the crop - so to speak. Latecomers to the party would have less choice, obviously, but would still be incentivised to buy anyway since there are not that many alternative pathches to choose from in a given area.

The price could also be reduced as time goes by so the day before halloween you're almost certain to sell the most amount possible.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#15

Post by irrational »

jjmellon wrote: post #7

The article's profit calculations assume that every pumpkin grown can be sold. If you take a drive in the countryside today (last day of sale before Hallowe'en), you'll see this is not the case. Huge piles of pumpkins still at the farm stores, and fields full of unharvested pumpkins. I believe the likely explanation for pumpkin patch economics is that pumpkins serve as a loss leader to attract customers to a farm sto…

But, the chart clearly showed that 50-75% of the pumpkins cannot be sold.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#16

Post by csydas »

monkeydust wrote: post #3

I went to a patch with the kids over the weekend here in UK. It was fun but when it got time to pay we joined a long queue with others having our pumpkins in a wheel barrow. When we got to the front we had to match our pumpkins to a template based on size (cost from 50p to £10) and then a cashier would tally up the total. I got chatting to the owner whilst waiting and he was open to a more tech smarter way to pay to…

TBH, I think you over-complicate this.

1. Dry-weight scales are very common in produce/stores and extremely common in EU stores (I'm in Russia right now and it's de-facto the standard for most every store)

2. Get a few scales cause you can use them for all produce year around, and they easily earn their keep, and the upkeep is cheap

3. Pre-pick pumpkins under a certain threshold and sell at flat prices; this creates two sale levels: one for those who want a big pumpkin to mess with, one for those who just want a pumpkin to carve. The latter doesn't need to be heavily regulated, your workers can just eye-ball it and given the margins around Halloween you won't really lose out (probably such "eye-balling" will benefit the farm, not the consumer)

The technical solution here might eventually be more accurate, but it doesn't really benefit anyone. The conditions to make the camera detection work are wonky and you probably end up wasting more time making sane conditions for detection than you do just setting some limits.

Similarly, don't forget that too much tech, and it actually might __discourage__ people as they see the farm as non-authentic. The aesthetic of an organic "real" farm doesn't include a lot of high-tech in many people's minds, and you risk offending the wisdom of the masses by being "too technological". Granted, there's absolutely no difference in the end result, but consumers certainly thing differently about it (there's a reason a lot of people still prefer a human cashier to the touch-screen terminals at fast food restaurants, and it's not efficiency, that's for sure)

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#17

Post by th5 »

tomrod wrote: post #8
monkeydust wrote: post #3

I went to a patch with the kids over the weekend here in UK. It was fun but when it got time to pay we joined a long queue with others having our pumpkins in a wheel barrow. When we got to the front we had to match our pumpkins to a template based on size (cost from 50p to £10) and then a cashier would tally up the total. I got chatting to the owner whilst waiting and he was open to a more tech smarter way to pay to…

Here is my thought process: > - Move your barrow under a camera. Minimum $5k, closer to $25k, to set physical hardware, network, queueing line and instructions > - It would take a picture and through image recognition identify and classify pumpkins based on size. $100k+ capex to get implemented model on hardware, sufficient training samples + training expertise, QA, etc. Ongoing opex for maintenance (sun, weather), m…

@pumpkinman - IMO in regards to business viability it’s just as valuable to see someone’s process of how they came to the conclusion as the conclusion itself

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#18

Post by tomcooks »

monkeydust wrote: post #3

I went to a patch with the kids over the weekend here in UK. It was fun but when it got time to pay we joined a long queue with others having our pumpkins in a wheel barrow. When we got to the front we had to match our pumpkins to a template based on size (cost from 50p to £10) and then a cashier would tally up the total. I got chatting to the owner whilst waiting and he was open to a more tech smarter way to pay to…

Unload barrow on a checkout cage, top of checkout cage is a plank with holes on top with one hole for each size category (the bigger the more expensive)

Pumpkin falls on an Arduino controlled button, adds +1 on a price multiplier

All pumpkins get unloaded on a checkout wheelbarrow for customer to load on their car.

To open the cage and collect the checkout wheelbarrow you have to pay price is sum of multipliers times their respective base price.

Unsold loaded checkout wheelbarrows in cages can be pushed by staff at the beginning of the queue with a "pay with credit card and leave in 30 seconds" sign, at a 10% premium.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#19

Post by lotsofpulp »

dazc wrote: post #14
monkeydust wrote: post #3

I went to a patch with the kids over the weekend here in UK. It was fun but when it got time to pay we joined a long queue with others having our pumpkins in a wheel barrow. When we got to the front we had to match our pumpkins to a template based on size (cost from 50p to £10) and then a cashier would tally up the total. I got chatting to the owner whilst waiting and he was open to a more tech smarter way to pay to…

Since the demand is concentrated over such a short period I guess the simplest solution would be to have one price for all? This would encourage people to shop early as they would get the pick of the crop - so to speak. Latecomers to the party would have less choice, obviously, but would still be incentivised to buy anyway since there are not that many alternative pathches to choose from in a given area. The price co…

Pumpkins are an expiring good. To move as many as possible as quickly as possible while also collecting as high of a price as each person is able/willing to pay, it is best for the seller to offer many versions of the pumpkins at many price points.

Aka selling different styles of pumpkin at different price per weight. The seller can sell to people willing to pay more for various styles, and people willing to pay more for various sizes. And to people wanting to spend less, and everyone in between. Which is what already happens.

Re: The economics of pumpkin patches

#20

Post by tomcooks »

paulcole wrote: post #2

I like how the article takes a hard turn from statistics: > Americans are expected to spend a record $10B+ on Halloween items in 2021, up from $8B last year — and pumpkins are a big player: Among the 65% of Americans celebrating Halloween this year, 44% (~94m people) plan to carve one. Straight to vague generalities: > While pumpkins can readily be found at most grocery stores, many folks turn to a patch to procure t…

Or that's how clickbait articles work
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