$99 wedding cakes - Page 3

There's no way I'd do any of those designs for $99. I'm doing a wedding cake in April to feed 116 ppl and it's costing the bride a whole lot more than that. Some of those designs were intricate (basketweave!!!!) so they take a lot of time.

I'm interested to see if this pays off for them in the end.

99 dollars would be cheaper than even the price walmart offers. I believe the simple offerings make it possible to reduce the price....one could buy in bulk, bake in bulk and sell in bulk. The oven would be running anyway, might as well throw some cakes in there...and if full use was being made of oven time, down time....slower times of the week...you could produce cakes without compromising quality...just limiting potential budget shoppers' options.

I don't see where the undercutting is here either.

I do like the idea that if there are to be any changes other than color to the options....you go by the regular pricing scale. There would be no ..."can I get this but with mousse filling?" sure you can! that would be 100 servings x 3.00 (whatever) + .25 x100 for mousse filling=325 plus tax.... "but it says...only $99" uh huh....and that's for THOSE OPTIONS ONLY. there wouldn't be any , "....and how much extra for....?" allowed.

The more I think about it, the more I realize the anguish they'll be going through.

"No substitutions".

A co-worker of mine was ticked one day because she went to lunch, ordered their special deluxe (5-ingredient) pizza "without onions". What ticked her off is she paid $12 for a 4-ingredient pizza instead of the $9.99 for the 5-ingredient pizza, less onions. I thought of this story as I read all4cake's post, above!

But you guys are missing the opportunity here! All of you in the area just need to fill up their calendar with orders from YOU! Order the $99 cake from them, iced and bordered. Then you just add the finishing touches, which should only take less than an hour, give or take, bill the bride $300 and then kick back and watch a Lifetime Movie!

I think I'm casting my vote for whoever said it earlier .... buying pre-baked frozen rounds and slappin' 'em together. How limited is their delivery area?

(Psst! I luv doing basketweave and can do a 3-tier basketweave in under an hour. And I don't charge extra for it.)

LOL!!! Very smart...

Even if there is no profit or even a loss at $99, they saved tons of money on free advertising and look at the interest they've already generated by being featured on a local news station.

They also say some dates are limited (which probably means all - because you can only make so many cakes no matter what the offer) so they probably will not really be making all that many at that price but man what a response they've gotten.

And people will now know of their special Pink Lemonade cupcakes and other aspects of their business. Not to mention that the orders are to be paid in full at time of order and are non-refundable and we all know things happen.

It is kind of a smart business move AND it makes them look generous.

I was thinking the same thing. You can by that much cake ( 6-9-12) from dawn foods for about $20, especially if you buy in bulk. $10 worth of bucket-o-criscocream and $15 in labor. Doable, and would have the added benefit of knocking off a couple of competitors.

and if that was one of the cakes they were icing....hell...there ain't no splittin' and fillin' goin' on....them bad boys are straight up 2 layers...oh, yeah...uh huh...I can so see this happening.

I wouldn't worry about the competition really.....its not like these $99 brides were thinking about paying one of us $750 to do a cake anyways so...hey! I don't think its really an undercutting or a 'disservice'.

Hope it works out for them! Nice blessing for some small wedding brides on a budget.

Totally agree with you ther deb!

We don't know if these people use cake mix or bake from scratch for these $99 cakes or what recipe of icing they will be using. I don't think cost of supplies will be any problem for them, labor is the only thing I think they have to really consider. And if they are good decorators (which it looks like they are) They should be able to bust out these super basic cakes in minimal time. IMO.

You know... I was looking all over their website for their standard pricing and I can't find it...

We have a guy here who pumps out like 30 wedding cakes a week, no melvira method on that buttercream, just one swoop around and it's done. He charges $2.25 per serving for pretty much anything.

village Desserts may be that kind of bakery, and so, while it's still cutting the price, it may not be cutting it as much as some of us would have to to get to $99 for up to 100 servings.

And back to the other guy I'm talking about, he has 2 delivery vans, 15 cakes in each one and tools all over town dropping off cakes. So the included delivery for VD (hah!) may not be a big deal in their world.

I've been thinking about this post all afternoon. I can see the good (for them) and the not-so-good.

Bottom line IMO:

This is a good lesson on why we should not compete on price alone. Someone will ALWAYS find a way to come in for less!

Happy cakin' ya'll!

I was looking thru the cakes. Most have ribbon or live flowers which I'm sure the client has to provide (i.e. pay for) and other than a couple with what looks like fondant stars are all buttercream with some buttercream piping of some sort and all are round. No squares, hex, hearts or anything else.

Judi

Meaning no high-season weekends, probably.

How much business did y'all turn away last weekend? Are you overbooked for this coming weekend? How about the Wednesday after Valentines Day?

Okay, thinking about this some more (because I ponder things too much )


How would some of you handle this- You want to implement the $99 cake thing to drum up business but you have other brides that have been booked with you for months at the regular price. How does that work? Do you think the brides that booked a while ago would feel slighted? Any poor reflection that way?

Slightly different angle- I read on here a while back that folks who do custom work should never discount, maybe offer "added value" but no coupons, % off etc. Could a move like this prove detrimental in the long run? Does it drive down the perceived value of the bakery's work? Does it cheapen things in any way?

It's great to make sales now but as business people we have to think big picture, long term...

I feel bad for the bakers local to this place. Some businesses are already struggling right now with folks tightening their spending.

Yeah, I know, I ponder too much...

POnder away! It gets us ALL thinking!!

if any of your booked brides ask about it, you could tell them it's the no-frills cake. No frills, no choice, no design. "Were you thinking of downgrading your wedding cake or something?"

As someone mentioned above, when the car salesman offers the Kia at a really low price ..... no one REALLY wants a car with no air, no radio, etc. (I know too many people in the car biz ... NO ONE really wants a car like that.) I know a lady who runs a chapel and offers a 1-hour time slot for a really low price. She gets LOTS of calls from people wanting that, but after finding out what size and style of wedding they're having, then end up buying a bigger package .... lots of calls for the cheap one .... lots of bookings for the pricer ones.

I don't think offering a no-frills cake is the same as discounting. I view discounting as selling a $500 cake for $350. Selling a $99 cake for $99 isn't discounting.



This is a silly thing to come to mind, but it DID come to mind, so I'm sharing it anyway! Being an old fart, I actually watched the episode where J.R. got shot. There was one storyline where Bobby and J.R. were competing to see who would run the company. J.R. started opening gas stations on every corner and selling gas really cheap. Bobby was fretting because it would show an immediate jump in income, but the long run profit just wouldn't be there ... but those numbers wouldn't show up during "the contest". (How many other old-timers out there know what show I'm talkin' about here? )

My point is to be careful ..... make sure that your efforts to get the cash in there isn't one of those "we're losing a dollar on each one we sell but we'll make it up in volume" things.