FAQs for Agribusinesses interested in using cmdty Marketplace to connect with their producers

If you’re an agribusiness interested in using cmdty Marketplace to better connect with your community of producers then you’ve come to the right place! Here are some of the questions we see most often from users like you.

Getting Started

What is Marketplace?

Marketplace is your very own private network that connects your farmers with your agribusiness. We provide your producers with beautiful mobile apps and a complementary desktop experience that is fully branded to you. Through Marketplace, grain buyers are able to easily connect with producers via mobile app and easily communicate bids and offers to buy grain. The elevator-branded mobile app provides their farmers with an immersive experience that is designed to help drive great customer engagement.

Just by downloading the app, farmers can view all prices that their grain elevator publishes alongside futures prices, market news, and weather - and both parties are able to communicate through instant messaging. Farmers can request approval to negotiate grain offers to buy/sell grain in real-time - all of which is supported by our instant messaging capabilities.

How can I get started using Marketplace to grow my business?

It’s as simple as connecting with us at marketplace@barchart.com. We can get you up and running with your own branded portal in as little as a day.

How does Marketplace relate to other products in the cmdty product line?

Marketplace is designed to seamlessly integrate with all of the other offerings in the cmdty product line. Basically, the producer facing Marketplace apps communicate with the cmdtyView Pro real-time software that you’re using today through the Chat and Offer functionality that both the producer and your merchandisers can use. The bids running through your existing bid management relationship are automatically pulled into the product, and if you’re using cmdty Match (formerly the Grain Offer System) everything is already in place for you to get started immediately. We keep it simple so you can focus on what matters most - your relationships!

What’s the best way to use the product?

Schedule a demo with our awesome product team at marketplace@barchart.com and we’ll show you the ins and outs of the platform. We’ll show you how to use cmdtyView Pro to work up custom offers to your producers, chat with them in real-time, and then execute your hedge after you close a deal. On top of that, we can seamlessly integrate the Marketplace product into your website to drive producer acquisition, engagement, and loyalty. They won’t want to take their grain anywhere else.

How quickly can I get Marketplace setup for my elevator?

If I said you could be setup within a day, would you believe me? It’s true. While it will take a little bit of time to get your app listed on the App Store, we can get everything else ready to go. Reach out to our dedicated Ag team based across Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Illinois to get started with a local rep.

Making Offers

Can users submit offers to us before they are explicitly approved?

No way! We want to make sure that our elevator partners aren’t being sent offers that aren’t relevant or related to relationships that you have with your producers. If a producer hasn’t yet been approved by you, they will be presented with a notification in app that tells them that they “cannot make an offer until you have been approved by the elevator.” If you see something to the contrary then please drop us a line marketplace@barchart.com.

Can I send counter-offers to producers?

Both merchandisers and producers can use the chat feature within the system to negotiate grain offers in real-time. At this time though, after offer creation, offer details can only be rejected, acknowledged, or accepted by the merchandiser, or cancelled by the producer. We’re working on the ability to edit offer details and finding ways to get this in a subsequent release.

Chat / Direct Messages

How do we set our producers so that they can chat with us?

Once a producer registers on the site, their chat panels will automatically populate with the names of merchandisers you have listed under your elevator. The producers don’t need to take any steps! Each of your merchandisers will need to have a cmdtyView Pro and a cmdty Match account in order to receive chat messages from their producer relationships. Please reach out to marketplace@barchart.com if you need to get setup with an additional cmdtyView Pro or would like to get your Match account linked.

Will any other elevators on Marketplace have access to my Producers?

Not a chance. All of the producers that are registered to your Marketplace instance are your users. What is happening behind the scenes is that any producer registering with your system is being added to a “room” which is just a channel between two or more users of the chat system. Only your merchandisers can communicate with your producers, and producers cannot communicate with each other. Of course, your merchandisers can communicate over chat since they are cmdtyView Pro users - who all have access to our chat network.

Still have questions?

Barchart is committed to providing tools that make grain buying and selling easier than ever before. If you still have questions check out our full list of frequently asked questions or reach out to us at cmdty@barchart.com.