Listing of Honey Sellers

Our public website now provides a listing of locations where some of our members are offering their honeybee related products for sale to the public, either directly, or via village stores or local market stalls.

Visit ‘Members Honey For Sale‘  to see the listing.

Since the demise last year of the monthly Farmers market stall that used to provide an outlet for both RBKA’s and some Members honey and other products, enquiries have been frequently received, via the public website; asking where local honey can now be bought.

The scheme now operational seeks to address that issue. Hopefully full-filling a modest consumer demand and providing an ‘out of season’ outlet for members surplus stocks. Members selling in this way will also be ambassadors for Reigate Beekeepers.

To keep the management and operation of the scheme as simple and discreet as possible, there are just three steps.

Step 1 – Registering your Products, by simply contacting Julie Thain and providing:

1. The location (town or village) from where your products can be bought, either directly from yourself (at your door) of from a local store or village market. Your actual address or outlet name & address are not required to be listed. Those details are only later provided by you directly to individual members of the public enquiring about your products.
2. A brief description of the products you would be selling. You may wish to include the location of the source of the honey if different from where the honey can be bought.
3. A contact email address for you that will be used only to route public enquiries to you, via the website. The address will never be visible on the website, or by the public at the time of submitting an enquiry.

Step 2 – Publication of your Entry on the List

1. A Master list of ‘Sellers’ will be maintained by Julie, with new sellers or amendments to existing sellers details being forwarded to the Webmaster (yours truly) to update the On-Line listing.
2. Each entry line will be given a List Reference, eg BK20.
3. Each seller has their own on-line ‘Contact Form’ created for each entry line, via which the public can request information about the sellers products, eg availability, sizes, weights, prices and where to find you.

Step 3 – Receiving and Responding to an Enquiry

1. Public viewing the list can select a Location/Product description, open the Contact form by clicking the Enquiry link to complete and Submit their enquiry.
2. When an Enquiry is submitted, the beekeeper selected will receive an email  message like this in their In-Box:
   • To: Beekeepers email address
   • Subject: Enquiry – about buying hive products in Location, eg Reigate and List ref eg BK20  
   • Enquiry from (name): The Senders Name
   • Enter ‘ID Code’ for Location selected: List ref eg BK20
   • I would like more details about your ‘Product Descriptions as listed‘ products please, including availability, prices, address details and preferred times.: Please email me
   • I have this specific question about your products …: Free text area for senders use (optional)
   • Email : The senders email address
3. All you then need to do is respond to the enquiry, providing the appropriate information; and for sales at the door, arranging mutually convenient times etc.
4. Your email address at this point will be seen by the receiver of your response.
5. Should you not wish to respond to a particular enquiry for some reason (suspected scam, time waster etc) notify the Webmaster. rbkawebmaster@btopenworld.com

Copies of Submitted enquiries will automatically also be delivered to Julie, in order that the use of the system by the public can be monitored. Records of all submitted Enquiries are also retained within the WordPress (the website host) Feedback files until deleted by me.

There are no sales commission fees for this ‘service’ to Members of RBKA. However a voluntary donation to RBKA’s project fund of (say) 5% of sales made via enquiries received … would be most welcome.

My thanks to Julie Thain for taking on the management of the Sellers List. Julie will also routinely check with all current listed sellers to prompt if updates are needed. However, sellers are asked to notify Julie when amendments need to be made, especially related to stock availability. If stock runs out, entries can either be (temporarily) removed, or flagged as ‘not currently available’ to avoid unnecessary enquiries being sent and received.

Finally, just remains to request that all sellers let Julie and myself know if this attracts genuine customers and achieves real sales, or indeed if it doesn’t!

Richard Bradfield