Does Anyone Live Northern California
Decorating By GLORIA2005 Updated 24 Jul 2005 , 4:52am by Ladycake
I live in Turlock Ca 1hr from Sacamento CA if you do how much should I charge a 4 stack wedding cake am going to use pan 16 14, 12 and 8
I live in Turlock Ca 1hr from Sacamento CA if you do how much should I charge a 4 stack wedding cake am going to use pan 16 14, 12 and 8
I live in Central Ca. I would suggest that you get or make yourself a price matrix so you know what your costs are for making these cakes and then deside what mark up you want to charge 2.5% or 3.0% what ever and go with that .. in CA I know that cakes for for $1.24 - $7.00 a slice so you really are not able to go with what would someone else charge for a cake you need to know what your cost is for that cake and then what your mark up is going to be..
I live in San Jose, which is probably not North enough for comparable pricing, but I'm also trying to refine my ideas about what to charge. So far I've made lots of gifts and donations, but the time has come to get serious about charging. This may be way off base, but I think you need to see what bakeries in your area charge and you ought to charge more, since (I assume) you are doing one-of-kind cakes. I plan to charge "per serving" with additional charges for gumpaste bows, flowers, hand-made pearls or other sculpted items. Costco has half-sheet cakes for $13.99, so if we try to reach down to that level we will cheat ourselves. Prospective clients need to perceive that they are getting value for their money. Baking, decorating, and cleaning up all take valuable time in addition to ingredient costs. If you rent commercial kitchen space, you have to add that to your costs too. I want to make at least $10.00 an hour (or why bother) though I do realize that at the beginning I have to factor in the fact that I'm still pretty slow.
What I'm trying to say is that we need to take into account all our costs plus our time, and then (assuming we look as good or better than the bakeries around us) we need to train our clients to pay us what we are worth--more than the mass-produced stuff.
Gloria, do you really mean 3% as a markup? Isn't that just 3 cents on a dollar's costs? What am I missing? I figure a cake that costs $10.00 to make ought to sell for at least $30.00 or $40.00, since I can't imagine even a smal cake taking less than 3 hours to make, what with baking, filling, icing decorating, and cleaning up. I don't use mixes, and I usually work in fondant, so I could be way off....
This is my first post. Hope I'm not being presumptuous.
Susan
I live in San Jose, which is probably not North enough for comparable pricing, but I'm also trying to refine my ideas about what to charge. So far I've made lots of gifts and donations, but the time has come to get serious about charging. This may be way off base, but I think you need to see what bakeries in your area charge and you ought to charge more, since (I assume) you are doing one-of-kind cakes. I plan to charge "per serving" with additional charges for gumpaste bows, flowers, hand-made pearls or other sculpted items. Costco has half-sheet cakes for $13.99, so if we try to reach down to that level we will cheat ourselves. Prospective clients need to perceive that they are getting value for their money. Baking, decorating, and cleaning up all take valuable time in addition to ingredient costs. If you rent commercial kitchen space, you have to add that to your costs too. I want to make at least $10.00 an hour (or why bother) though I do realize that at the beginning I have to factor in the fact that I'm still pretty slow.
What I'm trying to say is that we need to take into account all our costs plus our time, and then (assuming we look as good or better than the bakeries around us) we need to train our clients to pay us what we are worth--more than the mass-produced stuff.
Gloria, do you really mean 3% as a markup? Isn't that just 3 cents on a dollar's costs? What am I missing? I figure a cake that costs $10.00 to make ought to sell for at least $30.00 or $40.00, since I can't imagine even a smal cake taking less than 3 hours to make, what with baking, filling, icing decorating, and cleaning up. I don't use mixes, and I usually work in fondant, so I could be way off....
This is my first post. Hope I'm not being presumptuous.
Susan
Gloria, do you really mean 3% as a markup? Isn't that just 3 cents on a dollar's costs? What am I missing? I figure a cake that costs $10.00 to make ought to sell for at least $30.00 or $40.00, since I can't imagine even a smal cake taking less than 3 hours to make, what with baking, filling, icing decorating, and cleaning up. I don't use mixes, and I usually work in fondant, so I could be way off....
This is my first post. Hope I'm not being presumptuous.
Susan
I think your talking to me about this since I am the one that posted about the 3%...
What you do is you get a pricing matrix to figure out all of your costs and you get your total.. then you add 3% which is your mark up.
Ok this is an example say a box of cake cost you .88 cents your mark up if you charge $1.76 that is 2% mark up $2.20 is 2.5% mark up so you input all of your information and then you take the total at the end of your mark up as to what you are going to charge for that cake.. I did not want to list everythying just wanted you to see what I was talking about .. and at the end you end up with a total for your cake and your mark up can be anything you want it to be..
Whoops, I'm so sorry Victoria, I'm new at this and didn't look in the right place for your name. I apologize. Actually, we are in the same place with the pricing. I do pretty much the same thing right now in the travel industry when I make up travel package prices. (I'm looking for a career change to cakes.) I was confused, because the way I learned percentages like that was that if you have .88 cents in expenses and increase to $1.76 that is considered a 100% increase and to $2.20 is 150%. When I saw 3% to me that said you were only marking up your cakes by pennies. Now that you have explained it, I understand what you are saying and I agree completely, as long as the mark-up takes time into consideration. We are trying to say the same thing.
Where can I get an example of the price matrix people are using?
That is fine I can handle being called that name you used as long at it was not something mean.. LOL ..
I dont know how in detail you want your matrix to be mine is simple for me I am not in it for the business just to make some of my money back right now... As for time how do you charge for time.. LOL your time is priceless... But you can add anything you want in to these you just have to know how to use a spreadsheet and how to fill in the quotes to make it add together and such.. I have a simple one if you would like that . If so Email me at [email protected] and put in the subject line Price Matrix that way I can catch it in the junk filter.. if you want one that is more in detail I think its Missy That has that one..
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