Ag retailers must answer many basic questions before they launch a Web site. What will the design be? What features and how many pages will the site contain? What will it cost? For Ag Valley Co-op, headquartered in Edison, NE, those questions were answered when George Hearn, IT manager, developed and built its Web site two years ago. Today the questions are more involved, like how to add features while maintaining control of the site.

“Additional features such as real-time grain bids require additional software, access to off-site computers and a fee each time a person accesses the grain bids,” Hearn says. “Will our customers receive enough benefit to offset the control and cost issues? That's the big question.”

Hearn designed and built the site in addition to his regular duties as IT manager. “My first responsibility is to keep all the computers, networks and servers functioning for our 17 locations,” he says. “The Web site has been learn as I go.”

Ag Valley decided to launch its Web site when it saw its customers becoming more familiar with new technology. It also wanted to establish an advertising presence. “Our goal for the Web site was to have a good-looking site that we could be proud of and was our own product,” Hearn says. “We offer online account access as a service while having the opportunity for free advertising, whether it's division specials or an open house or field day.”

Visitors to Ag Valley's Web site at www.agvalley.com can use a point-and-click map for information about each location in addition to grain, fuel and service center prices. The site also features an extensive offering of links — for example, to commodity organization sites — and special information such as grain bids, market and financial analyses, and weather reports.

The Ag Valley site gives the most knowledgeable employees in each area responsibility for updating their portion of the Web site. For instance, changes in automotive department specials are simultaneously picked up on six pages of the Web site through one simple change.

“By designing the pages to be updated by each area of the business and then training employees, the IT guy can take vacation,” Hearn jokes. “More importantly the changes get made on a timely basis whether I'm in my office or at a location handling IT duties.”

The most recent addition to Ag Valley's Web site is online account access. “We added this feature as a service to our customers,” Hearn says. “We know that not everybody does their own bookkeeping between 8:00 and 5:00. This way they have access to their accounts any time day or night whether our office is open or not.”

Customers can review grain contracts, scale tickets, grain settlements, commodity balances, sales orders, delivery receipts, invoices, payments and AR balances online. Counter receipts are available in online accounts within one hour, and scale tickets are updated at the end of each business day.

Online account access debuted in January and still includes only a small percentage of Ag Valley's customers. “The service is free to our customers, and our younger and/or more progressive customers are using it,” Hearn says. “But our more traditional customers see computers as a complicated new skill that they don't want to pick up. They prefer to give us a call or stop in — and that's fine too.”

By the end of this year, Ag Valley's Web site will have dedicated pages for each of the co-op's divisions. Hearn says that these pages will have photos, phone numbers and e-mail links for managers and salespeople.

“Our division managers see e-mail as a very important tool for communication,” Hearn notes. “They already use it daily to communicate with employees and suppliers, so this new feature should only enhance their productivity.”

In addition to the Web site, Ag Valley maintains an Intranet site for employees only. This site contains all employee phone numbers, cell phone numbers, news articles for the company and past issues of the employee newsletter. “It also serves an important function as a test bed for new features before they make it to the live Web site,” Hearn says.

In the future Hearn would like to add a forum or online trading post for Ag Valley customers and local residents, online job applications and an archive of company newsletters. “With 17 locations in the heart of rural Nebraska, there are a lot of information opportunities,” he says.

Ag Valley serves approximately 3,000 customers in 10 counties through locations in Arapahoe, Bartley, Beaver City, Cambridge, Curtis, Edison, Hendley, Holbrook, Indianola, Lebanon, Maywood, Moorefield, North Platte, Orleans, Oxford, Stamford and Wilsonville.

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