Last week I attended the Acres USA conference on eco-agriculture, where Jeff McPherson, a grandfatherly organic family farmer, presented a lecture on the ins and outs of what he calls Honor System Marketing. Honor System Marketing could be described as a retail strategy where merchandise is sold without supervision. For twenty years McPherson has run his produce stand on the honor system. He piles fresh produce on the open shelves and in the walk-in cooler and then he walks away. Customers help themselves and put their money in a metal box. Here is some of what McPherson has learned using Honor System Marketing:

1) You will get ripped off.
2) Most people are honest.
3) Some people pay more than the asking price.
4) Always use a cheap lock on your pay box.
5) The cost of loss is far less than the cost of labor.
6) There are people who are truly needy.

Once someone left a note in the pay box with a sad story of poverty and hunger. They assured him that they would return to pay for the food. Three years later they did. And when a hailstorm destroyed Mr. McPherson’s entire crop, he was too distraught to visit his empty stand. When he finally did go to the stand he found his pay box stuffed with notes of thanks and wads of cash – enough to buy all the seeds he needed to replant.

During his lecture McPherson made sure to hammer home a very important point. The honor system is a two-way street. If a merchant is a trusted member of the community most people will be honest. Apparently it’s easier for people to justify stealing from a jerk. Which may explain why most big retailers must spend millions protecting their merchandise from customers and employees.

-Jeff