Hi all!

If you own or work at a business that sells cake decorating supplies and equipment
!) what is the average amount that each customer who comes into your store spends on decorating supplies and equipment?

2) how many sales do you make on an average day?

3) are you in a destination location or do people mostly just walk in?


If you purchase your supplies in a cake decorating store

1) how much do you usually spend when you go?

2) how often do you go?

3) Do you prefer shopping at a cake decorating store or are you happy with Michael's/Joanne's/ Hobby Lobby/etc. or on-line?

4) How far would you drive to a cake decorating store that carried a wide variety of supplies?

Still trying to figure out if I can open a viable business. Thanks for your help.

I do not sell supplies as a retail outlet, however I will sell boxes, boards, parchment to my customers if they need some. I prefer to just purchase my supplies from my suppliers, however if I am desperate I will go to one of the craft stores. I try to make sure I have plenty of supplies so I am not forced into going. If there was a place fairly close by that had specialty items I would drive maybe 30 miles to purchase those items. On the average I probably spend 125 to 150 every time I order, sometimes its more sometimes a little less. This does not include my staple items, sugar, flour, eggs etc...I am sure that for the homebaker, a good place to buy their supplies would be an advantage to them. Good Luck with your plan.

There's really only one cake supply store in Indianapolis other than the Michael's, Hobby Lobby, and walmart inventory. She's about a 45 min drive for me. I try to get there at least twice a month and I spend over $100 each time.... many times over $200, depending on the wedding volume for the month. One time, the register rang up only $36 and the clerk and I both looked at it like, "That can't be right!" hahahaha!

I don't like buying at Michael's or the other places unless I need just one thing in an emergency (I have a Walmart walking distance from my house if I need something that MAYBE they'll have in stock .... but I don't bet on it!)

I only have one cake decorating shop close by - 45 minutes away. Then if she doesn't have what I'm looking for, she has to order it. I mostly get my boxes from her. So I personally am forced to order supplies online. There is a Walmart 20 minutes away that I will buy color pastes, Cake Release, etc. but their inventory is pretty limited.
Good luck with your business

To keep the credit card lower, I save my pennies and go to the cake store which is about 20 minutes from me. I always have a list too!! I spend on average about $40. But I do spend a lot more $$ on the internet with specialty items (on average about $100 per purchase.) That happens about once a month (sometimes twice.) I do go to Michaels a lot but their selection of what I need is extremely limited.

Thank you for your posts. I will let everybody know if I can succeed in maiking this work. California is not easy to deal with both because of the extremely high rents and the Health Department regulations, but I'm not giving up yet!

The store I go to is 90 minutes away, a tiny place in a strip mall crammed with goodies. It's like a treasure chest - you may not see it, but you know they will have it. Selection is more important to me than huge stock. Tips are sold out of a garage hardware case with number labels. Maybe one hook of each item. I find new things every time, and spend $50-100 each time. I go as often as I can, usually twice a month, and I don't sell yet!

Same here, I order online and spend an average of $120 once a month. Sometimes twice...

I'd like to put this out too: the cake store near me (about 20 minutes away) is essentially the only game in town. She is the best stocked and there are only a small handful of other cake stores around. However, because she's the only game in town, she is extremely rude to customers (unprofessional and condescending.) My thought is that if she had any real competition, her attitude toward her customers would change in a hurry. If you do open a business and I sincerely hope it's a success, please remember that your customers are the ones who pay the rent for you. Treat them good and you will always be successful.

Cool!

People are willing to drive further and spend more than I thought. Though I'm not sure anything in California is quite like the rest of the world. This gives me hope that I could be successful.

I just finally connected with a realtor who thinks he can help me find a resonable, health-department-friendly space. That would be AWESOME!!!!

I'm jealous

Just kidding! You go girl

If you open a supply store, I recommend you offer classes of all kinds to keep people interested and purchasing new supplies.

Lora

Yup, Lora. That's the plan.

mjs4492

And you may want to consider a website like countrykitchen has (as one example.)

I ususally spend about 20-30 every 2-3 weeks locally. Only because micheal's, my local stores and Walmart don't have the selection or specialty items I am looking for. So I buy on line at times 100.00 to 130.00 every 2 weeks religiously. And I don't really sell much yet as I am just getting started. But I am finding the more specialty items you carry with a good selection of the common stuff, bags, tips, tools, the more likely people are to shop you faithfully because they know they can rely on you to have stocked items they commonly need and a specialty stock they can puruse and find that certain something they're looking for too. Sounds like an online site might be beneficial to you, no rent, no health regulations. Just a thought. Hope it all works out for you and keep us posted.

Thanks for the additional ideas.

While I certainly would be willing to ship things to people, on-line ordering would not be a major thrust because I think that need is well covered. Pfeil and Holing, Country Kitchen- Sweet Arts, Creative Cutters, Sugarcraft, Nicholas Lodge and Cakecentral are all already well-established and there are even more. It's not true that I wouldn't need to pay rent of some sort if I went on-line, becasue my house could certianly not hold the inventory that I'd need to be mailing.

The main thrust of a shop instead of an on-line thing is that you can ask questions, you can touch the merchansise, you can see the dust colors, you can take a class with people who can actually answer questions, you can get some ideas from things demonstrated-- I love buying books from Amazon with repsect to price, but it's not the same as going to the local bookstore and browsing to see if you like the book before you buy.

It seems no one depends exclusivly on Michael's, etc. That is what I thought, but wasn't really sure about. I'm not a big Wilton fan, but thought maybe that was mostly me.