How late does your bakery stay open? Chances are the answer isn’t 24/7.
As well-planned as you have to be to run your bakery smoothly, customers don’t always think that far ahead when it comes to ordering from your bakery. Maybe their job keeps them from calling or visiting during your bakery’s hours of operations. Or maybe, they just want to place an order while they are thinking about it—at 11:00 pm before bed.
Whatever their reason, your bakery needs to be around for them to place an order so you can secure their business. But don’t worry, that doesn’t mean extending your hours or taking phone orders off the clock. You simply need E-commerce, an online store.
BakeSmart Online allows you to build your online store in minutes. Our mobile-first E-commerce solution lets customers browse your product line and place their orders from anywhere and any device.
Here are some of the great features you receive with BakeSmart Online through our Enterprise module.
Custom Cakes and Assortment boxes
When we talk to bakers and bakery owners, one of the top concerns they have is about custom cake ordering. And we understand why!
With so many combinations of available flavors, fillings, icing, and decorations, it can get pretty complicated. Oftentimes, mistakes are made that result in upset paying customers. Or perhaps even worse, customers aren’t given the correct pricing, and your bakery ends up losing money.
WIth BakeSmart Online you can give your customers the exact information they need to pick out a beautiful cake or build their own perfect assortment box, and you can ensure that all the prices and combinations are correct. Build in any upcharges for larger sizes, specialty flavors, and more. BakeSmart online allows customers to choose their:
- Shape
- Size
- Flavor
- Filling
- Icing
- Inscription
- Inscription color
- Decoration
You should know that you can put all your cakes on BakeSmart Online, but you certainly don’t have to. You know your bakery better than anyone.
Production Limits
Maybe your bakery isn’t open on Monday, or you’ve decided not to take any orders on Christmas day. BakeSmart’s Production Module won’t let you take orders according to the date limits you choose to set, and those limits are reflected in BakeSmart Online as well.
Learn more about BakeSmart’s Production Module.
Promo Codes
People will never tire of saving money, and a promo code may be the key factor that brings in new customers and helps keep the ones you already serve. BakeSmart Online gives you the ability to create coupons and let customers apply them to online purchases.
You can choose if you’d like customers to save a:
- Dollar amount off
- Percent off entire ticket
- Percent off a single item
Set active dates and time periods so customers can only use them during a specific window of time. Maybe you want to have a 25% off Labor Day sale or a $4 discount on the 4th of July. The sky’s the limit.
BakeSmart Online also lets you choose if you want to allow these coupons to be applicable to any purchase or only specific products. 10% off a couple dozen muffins is much different than 10% off a custom cake. You get to decide what “restrictions may apply.”
Once you’ve got your promo codes set up how you want them, don’t forget to market them. For other ideas on specials and coupons, check out our blog!
User Accounts
Another great feature of BakeSmart Online is user accounts. Customers can sign in to their account and mark items as favorites so they can quickly reorder. And they can use their account to check their order history to get the exact item they had before.
So when someone asks your customer, what was that amazing cake you brought for Jim’s retirement party a few years ago? They can check their user accounts and give them all the information they need to order that cake from your bakery, too.
The Process
Here’s what the whole process looks like with BakeSmart Online. First, you choose which items will go online, and they will appear in a catalog. Make sure you include photos so your customers can see what they’re ordering and maybe even be tempted to order more. Take a look at our photography tips to capture your baked creations perfectly.
After a customer chooses to order an item from your bakery online, they can specify what day they’d like to have it delivered or picked up. Both of these options must be at least 48 hours in the future to give your bakery notice and ensure you are prepared.
BakeSmart Online ensures that your bakery is paid before a customer can place their order. It would be terrible for you to make a cake, and then a customer decides not to go pick it up. If they’ve paid for it already, they’ll most likely pick it up.
After the items are paid for and an order is placed, both the customer and your bakery get an email confirmation. Orders are automatically added to BakeSmart every five minutes. There’s no need to click any buttons or to worry about if the order is there.
There’s no need to try and establish an E-commerce website yourself or to pay a generous amount of money to have someone else set it up. With BakeSmart Online, it’s incredibly easy to give your customers what they want.
Looking for a way to offer your online customers same-day pickup or delivery? BakeSmart Online has you covered there, too! Check out our example site or schedule a BakeSmart demo today!
