A farmers-market preorder workflow needs a dated offer, an enforced quantity cap, provider-confirmed payment and a named pickup ledger. A hosted store or product page can collect payment without a full website, but it does not replace your production count, food/allergen obligations or an inventory control that stops sales at the promised limit.
This workflow is for bakers, growers and makers preparing a fixed batch for one market day. Its original asset is a batch-to-pickup ledger that reconciles twelve example orders without relying on payment screenshots or memory.
Publish One Market-Specific Offer
State the market name, pickup date and window, order cutoff, variants, quantity per pack, taxes where applicable, cancellation/refund rule and what happens if the market is cancelled. For food, show ingredients and allergen information required for your jurisdiction and provide a contact route for questions; this article is operational guidance, not food or tax advice.
Use a separate dated product or clearly versioned offer for each batch. A permanent generic “Saturday box” link becomes ambiguous when price, contents or pickup point changes.
Control the Quantity Before Sharing
| Control | Example | Failure it prevents |
|---|---|---|
| Batch cap | 36 sourdough loaves | Selling more than can be baked |
| Variant cap | 12 seeded, 24 plain | Wrong production mix |
| Order cutoff | Thursday 18:00 local time | Late orders after prep starts |
| Pickup window | Saturday 09:00–12:30 | Unclear handoff expectation |
| Exception reserve | 2 unlabeled spare units | Replacing a damaged item without overselling |
If your PayRequest setup does not enforce the exact stock rule you need, close or unpublish the offer manually at the cap and maintain the batch ledger outside checkout. Never imply that a payment link alone prevents overselling.
Use the Batch-to-Pickup Ledger
Give each confirmed order a short reference. Record buyer name, authenticated payment state, product/variant, quantity, paid total, pickup name and handoff status. Keep failed, pending and refunded orders visible as states rather than deleting them.
Worked example: twelve customers order 18 plain and 9 seeded loaves. The baker's ledger shows 27 paid units, 3 pending units and a cap of 36. Production starts from 27 confirmed units plus the chosen two-unit reserve—not from 30 screenshots in the message thread. When one pending payment later succeeds before cutoff, the confirmed count becomes 28 and the provider event supplies the audit trail.
Pack and Hand Off by Reference
Print or display the pickup ledger in reference order. Mark each bag with the order reference and pickup name, but keep unnecessary personal data out of public view. At the stall, verify the reference and name, then mark handed over with time and staff initials.
Do not take a second payment because a customer cannot find an email. Check the authenticated order first. If no confirmed payment exists, create a new at-stall sale and keep it distinct from the preorder. The existing craft-fair QR workflow covers spontaneous stall purchases; preorder pickup is a different state machine.
Reconcile After the Market
Totals should satisfy a simple equation: confirmed preorder units minus refunded/cancelled units minus handed-over units equals uncollected paid units. Separately count at-stall sales and physical waste. Contact uncollected customers using the disclosed pickup/refund policy rather than silently reselling a paid item.
Compare the ledger's paid totals with the connected provider, not with emails or screenshots. Record refunds as their own events. Then archive the dated offer and duplicate it only after updating the next market's date, caps and availability.
Run the Workflow With PayRequest
Use a PayRequest store for a small preorder catalog or the physical-products workflow for named products and variants. Connect the offer to the closest provider available to your customers, complete a mobile test purchase and verify the confirmation and pickup details.
Launch when the offer is dated, the cap is operational, a confirmed payment becomes exactly one ledger row, staff can hand over by reference and the post-market reconciliation explains every paid unit.