Zagreb County has given their support for the e-sales project between GoGreen and eKupi.
Family farms (OPG’s) and other small farmers within Zagreb County have joined the largest Croatian agricultural cluster GoGreen, reports Poslovni.hr on March 19, 2017.
Zagreb County wanted to find a way to encourage their nearly 15,000 small farmers to use the Internet as a sales channel more frequently. With the recent launch of GoGreen and eKupi, Josip Kraljičković, head of EU Funds in Zagreb County, said that actively supporting the development of new sales channels for agricultural products was important, so why not support this?
“First we started with the sale of apples and strawberries on stands around town, and we want to remain first when it comes to encouraging the sale of the products by our manufacturers over the Internet, and in this case, the GoGreen and eKupi project launched,” said Kraljičković. He added that they will go into the pilot project with 20 OPG’s and educate and advise them on selling through GoGreen and eKupi.
GoGreen, which gathers more than 700 OPG’s and other agricultural producers from all over Croatia, agreed to sell online via the largest online store in Croatia, eKupi, and just opened the first “smart market” in Croatia. Alan Slapar, the development manager of GoGreen, says that they are testing a range of new services for the market that Croatia currently does not offer.
“We are testing the possibility of ordering and product selection via WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Viber where our employees, according to your instructions, can choose fruits and vegetables. In this we would like to include the Croatian startup Vyoocam who developed the wearable camera,” says Slapar. They have already tested a model where customers choose the goods in person and have them delivered to their liking.
It is important to work on the introduction of similar innovations in the sale of agricultural products, said the head of the eKupi marketplace, Ilija Matić.
“This is an opportunity for OPG’s who have stalls at fairs to have virtual stands on eKupi and sell their products around the clock,” said Matic. “We have excellent cooperation with GoGreen and are still expanding. We arranged to cooperate with Slavonska Košarica,” concluded Matić.
