Website · 2025
Ostra Farm shop
An oyster farm's site and shop that sells out every Friday. Built to load on a fisherman's phone and to be edited by the people who farm.
- Client
- Ostra Farm
- Role
- Design and build, with a photographer
- Year
- 2025
- Stack
- Astro
- Stripe
- Supabase
- Resend
The brief
Ostra Farm sold oysters to restaurants by phone and to everyone else at a Saturday market. They wanted a shop for boxes delivered on Fridays, a site that tells the story of the farm, and a way to close orders when the tide or the weather says no.
What made it hard
- Deliveries only on Fridays, in a 40 km radius, with a cut-off on Wednesday
- The weather can cancel a harvest the day before
- Edited by the farmers themselves, on their phones
Results
- Boxes sold online a week
- Before: 0After: 180
- Page weight of the shop
- After: 210 kB
- Lighthouse, all four
- After: 100
- Time to close the shop for a storm
- After: One switch
How it was built
Oysters don’t keep, so the shop had to be honest about time. Every box shows the Friday it arrives and the Wednesday it must be ordered by, and the shop closes itself at the cut-off.
A switch for the weather
The most important feature is one button. When a storm is coming, the farmers press “Close for the weather” in the editor, write one sentence, and the shop closes with that sentence on every page. Paid orders for that Friday are refunded automatically and everyone gets an email in plain words.
Small on purpose
The shop is 210 kB with its photos. No cart drawer, no pop-ups, no carousel: a box, a date and a button.
Screens
Most orders come from phones, most on Tuesday evenings. 
One switch closes the shop and tells everyone why.
She asked better questions about oysters than our accountant. The shop has paid for itself twice.
Credits
- Photography
- Teresa Lobo
