5 TIPS TO SELL CAKES

Selling cakes can sometimes seem daunting. The pressure of making sure the customer is getting value for money, and more importantly: not poisoning them! But if you follow these tips, I can guarantee you will become successful at selling your cakes.

First of all, don't overestimate your ability, not to sound rude! Basically what I mean is don't bite off more than you can chew. The worst thing you can do is accept 10 cakes in the space of 2 days and have your end product be rubbish. It would be much better to politely decline some cakes, and make sure the small amount of cakes you do produce are top notch. Also be prepared for dry spells, quite often I find that I'll have 2-3 weeks of nothing, then suddenly loads of cakes in the space of a few days, now there is nothing you can do about this, but just make sure you are capable of doing all the cakes you accept.

Secondly, make sure you price your cakes at an appropriate level, if you price too high, you won't get any customers, too low and you'll be over worked. The best thing to do it use a proper spreadsheet. Things to remember are the use of ovens, hobs and electricity; the cost of your time, because cakes take longer than you'd think; and don't disregard the small quantities like salt and bicarb. Once you have the cost price, then decide how much profit you want to add, and decide your price.

Thirdly, is to plan really far in advance, I make a document with all the ingredients for each component, and when I'm going to make them. Thinking carefully about how long everything is going to take, including baking and cooling time. It's best to plan a good week in advance so you can see what ingredients you need to buy and so you don't stress out.

Buying in bulk can obviously reduce your cost, but it can be difficult. I buy my chocolate from here: https://www.thevanillavalley.co.uk/candy-buttons-colour-melts/pme-milk-chocolate-candy-buttons-12oz.html (because it's ALWAYS on offer!!). The only trouble with these websites is that they have a minimum order of £30 to get free delivery, and if you're stingy like me you ain't paying for delivery! I also buy sprinkles in bulk because I use quite a lot of them.

My final tip is simple... make sure everything you produce if perfect. If you're saying "it'll do", it probably won't. Sending out substandard products will not encourage your customers to come back for more, so make sure everything is top notch!

So there you go, all my tips, now you're set to earn lots of money from your cakes! So good luck, if you are successful and have some other tips, please leave a comment below.