FERRISBURGH, Vt. -
There was no time for downtime at the Dakin Farm Distribution Center in Ferrisburgh Monday.
The one-time family farm stand is now selling Vermont favorites by Internet and phone around the world.
With orders in hand folks along the gift package assembly line were hard at work on the cyber-shopping holiday. Patty Prime's been handling the post-Thanksgiving rush for years. "I just love the momentum, it keeps you going," she said.
Monday Dakin Farm plans to pack 600 orders-up from about 250 a day just two weeks ago.
It's boosting staff from 7 to 11 along this busy stretch to meet the demand.
"We just verify down through the list that we have everything and then we package it up, seal it with tape, put a tag on it so they know where it's shipping to and move it on down the line," Prime said.
The company owns two retail stores but Monday the majority of its sales don't come from foot traffic. In the last five years Internet sales have jumped from about 25 to 50 percent of Dakin's overall bottom line. Cyber Monday orders could easily top those that come in for entire months of the year outside the holiday season.
"It's an important day, there is a lot of e-commerce we are involved in, we're doing a lot of seasonal holiday marketing with Google," said Sam Cutting, Dakin Farm's President.
Dakin said he has his eye on 50,000 orders for the month of December, the bulk of which will most likely come in online. "We embraced it in 1995 and we have poured our resources into the Internet ever since them, so that's been a long time. Every year it is our fastest growing medium," he said.
And the folks on the front line of filling the holiday orders want people to know that whether they place their order by call, click or visit, they're being packed with care along Route 7.
"There are real people behind this. Everybody is doing the best they can do to get out what they can do and make sure that it gets there undamaged and ready for them to consume," Patty Prime said.
Cyber Monday is just the start for the team at Dakin Farm. The company estimates it could fill 6,000 orders on the last shipping day before Christmas.
