Mastering Last-Minute Cake Orders: Our Guide to Successful Semi-Custom Cakes
Last year, I wrote How to Accommodate Small, Last-Minute Cake Orders - And Preserve Your Sanity. This year, I'm revisiting that topic and sharing what I’ve learned from a full year of offering semi-custom options in our online cake shop.
Boosting Online Sales with Semi-Custom Cake Options
Our online shop has been part of our business for years, but it didn’t really take off until Covid hit. During the pandemic, customers got used to the convenience of ordering online, and sales soared for tiny cakes and pandemic-friendly cookie kits. After adding semi-custom options and expanding our offerings to include more two-tier and higher price point cakes last year, we saw a staggering 94% increase in revenue from our online shop.
The Joy of Last-Minute Orders
Surprisingly, I’ve grown to LOVE the last-minute orders that come through our online shop. Although we specialize in custom cakes, it’s refreshing to work on designs that we can execute efficiently. This not only speeds up production but also simplifies the training process for new team members.
The key to this success is filling the shop with designs that you want to make. If you've been in the cake designing business for a while, you'll know there are certain requests that can be draining. For me, it’s character cakes and small cakes that require extensive prep time. Our online shop addresses these challenges by offering a wide variety of designs that are exciting and straightforward to make. Customers can customize the color scheme, but the designs are predefined, which eliminates the need for lengthy back-and-forth communications or hours spent researching obscure cartoon characters. For character cakes, we suggest that clients personalize one of our pre-designed options with their own toppers.
Bridging the Gap Between Custom and Pre-Designed Cakes
This year, we've been focused on narrowing the gap between what’s available in our online shop and our bespoke creations that require a $1000 minimum. Noticing a trend toward smaller cakes, we added more two-tier options and sheet cakes. We also introduced larger single-tier cakes and our take on the popular Lambeth heart cake, which have been met with great enthusiasm from our clients.
Tips for Creating an Online Cake Shop That You LOVE
The cake order system described below works wonderfully for our team of five, but it’s important to find a system that works for you, ensuring the schedule fits your needs and you're selling cakes that you enjoy making.
1. Play to your strengths
Capitalize on designs you're known for! Simplify these designs to integrate them into your regular workflow and allow for creative customization with colors and add-ons.
2. Look for opportunities in popular designs
Add cakes to your shop that address frequently requested styles or fill gaps in your current offerings. If specific style of cake doesn’t meet your minimum or lead time for an order, can you add something similar to your shop?
3. Implement boundaries for logistical ease
Limit online shop orders to pick-up only. This way, you have time to execute your deliveries for larger events. For us, that means only offering 1 and 2-tier cakes in the shop so we can ensure safe transport by our clients.
Limit your pick-up dates and times to something that works for your current production schedule. We only offer Fridays and Saturdays and some of the more detailed designs are limited to Friday afternoon and Saturday pick-up.
Limit your flavor options so that you have more repeat flavors and building goes faster.
Set order deadlines that work for your baking schedule. We have different order deadlines based on how easy it is for us to execute the cake/keep cakes in stock to execute the order.
4. Optimize Your Schedule
Set pick-up hours that work for your schedule. If you’re a one person show that may look different than a bakery with employees that can be on site while others are delivering.
Block off dates when you hit capacity. Because of the way that our website is set up, we can be specific about this, like blocking off Friday orders for the more elaborate designs and leaving the cakes we are able to execute more quickly.
Bonus tip for cake studio owners and managers
Work with a virtual assistant who specializes in web design if the idea of creating the shop itself seems overwhelming. We use Squarespace for our site but we’ve heard great things about Shopify, too.
Inspiration from Fellow Cake Designers
In addition to our semi-custom cake shop, here are some examples of how other talented cake designers have structured their pre-designed offerings:
Feeling overwhelmed about where to start? Email me at info@sweetheatheranne.com to set up a consultation session about starting or improving your online cake shop.
Turn Passion into Profit
Interested in learning more about how we make a profit selling the work that inspires us? Check out our Pricing and Selling Intricate Work online course!
Photos by Cat Carty Buswell and Taylor Higgins.
Save this for later on Pinterest
Ready for more?
Learn cake decorating skills, from basic essentials to advanced techniques, that my team and I use every day in my Online Tutorials. For more tips like this delivered to your inbox, subscribe to The Cake Break, our once-per-month newsletter for cake decorators and artists.
We’d love to hear from you!
Share your experiences with last-minute or online cake orders in the comments below, or tag us in your cake photos on social media. Your feedback not only inspires us but also helps us refine our offerings to better serve you.