I Know I Undercharged....

Business By jillmakescakes Updated 6 Apr 2009 , 6:55am by jouj

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mooj Posted 5 Apr 2009 , 10:07pm
post #31 of 47

Oh, Indydebi! I'd love to read those stories too if you have a chance to email them. Thanks!

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jouj Posted 5 Apr 2009 , 10:13pm
post #32 of 47

Debi, your skyline cake is perfect..
Woooooooo, I have so many "prototypes"!! That would be almost everything new with a lot of details.
Don't you have problems like people asking you why their friends took the same product for less?
It happened to me once, and I had to say that I didn't calculate properly, and that I had to take the responsability with the first customer. icon_confused.gif

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cb_one Posted 5 Apr 2009 , 10:19pm
post #33 of 47

I really can't tell how big the cake is from the picture.

Probably between $75-100 though.

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sweetcravings Posted 5 Apr 2009 , 10:32pm
post #34 of 47
Quote:
Originally Posted by leahs

You ought to hear me when I load a cake into the customer's car. You remember the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld? mmmhhmmm

What type of vehicle are you in?
Kia
What style?
uh, 4 door.
harumpf, Where are you planning to put the cake?
on the back seat.
No way will I release the cake to you if you're putting it on the back seat.
::stunned silence::
Well, if you push the passenger seat all the way back, I think we can get it on the floor. But you can NOT turn on the heater. And you have to clean out the seat, because if you stop suddenly, those books there will fall onto the cake.
::scurry scurry, clean, clean::
There we go! Enjoy your cake! Have a lovely party!


And you all probably think I'm kidding.




Ok i am sooo like you. I do this too. Especially since one lady who ordered a stacked cake from me picked up her cake first in a four door. She was going to put it on the back sit, slanted...um NO WAY!!! She say, 'um ok i will come pick it up in another car". Next day she shows up in pickup truck. Putting her cake in the back end of the truck. icon_eek.gif It had a cover on it, but still..is she nuts! She insisted it would be fine, so i let her go. I did tell her, "once it leaves here, it's your responsibility". There was no way of convincing her this was a bad idea. She took it and thankfully it got there in one piece. Since then, i always insist upfront that if they don't have a suitable car it must be delivered.

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littlecake Posted 5 Apr 2009 , 10:47pm
post #35 of 47

indy...please send me a copy..i NEED to hear someone elses stories.

i took the cake out and loaded myself, she first wanted me to put it on a seat that was folded down, after all it was JUST a 15 degree slant....i made her unload stuff from the back...and put it there so i could slide the cake in somewhere totally flat....it took her forever to move all the crap she had back there....did i mention she had a set of pink golf clubs?

anyhoo...i got it put in all snug as a rug....she went about a block away and decided to move it to the front seat beside her...she thought she's level the seat by putting a paperback book on the low part.

it really was a nightmare when i went out and opened the door....i wanted to run away.

i fixed it into 2 "whimsey" cakes.....

i'm really having a hard time with this, i don't wanna be paranoid evey time someone leaves with a stacked...i always always tell them what kind of car to bring...about the A/C etc....

one lady wanted to put it in the trunk of her car..(in the summer) i wouldn't let her...she came back 30 minutes later pretending she had another car...and put it in the trunk anyway...i found out when i opened the door so she could carry it out...i told her if anything happened to it...i didn't wanna hear about it.

seeing that cake all broken up like that yesterday was awful....plus i might have pms or something, this really can be a stressful way of making a living.

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indydebi Posted 5 Apr 2009 , 10:51pm
post #36 of 47
Quote:
Originally Posted by jouj

Don't you have problems like people asking you why their friends took the same product for less?




Nope. But since I RARELY do a non-wedding cake, it's less likely for that to happen to me (so far this year, non-wedding cakes are less than 3% of my sales.

*IF* it ever happens on a wedding cake, I'll just tell them how it is: That bride selected a new design and permitted me to experiment on her so I could see what was involved and what my end cost would actually be. It was a special circumstance.

But again ..... it's never happened that a friend of the bride wants the exact same wedding cake that her friend had.

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CakeRN Posted 5 Apr 2009 , 11:09pm
post #37 of 47

So what ridiculously low price did you charge for that cute train cake. That is a lot of work since it looked like it was all stars..... I say you only charged about 25.00 for it....am I right???

My pooh cake I charged 100 for ....it was a lot of work and since I don't have to do this for a living then if they want a specialty cake then they will pay for it.

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jillmakescakes Posted 5 Apr 2009 , 11:25pm
post #38 of 47

Ok, as long as you promise not to be too mean.....


(grimace) I charged $75.00. My logic was $25.00 per car. (more grimace)

I was thinking after it was done that $125-$150 would have been more appropriate.

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-K8memphis Posted 5 Apr 2009 , 11:34pm
post #39 of 47
Quote:
Originally Posted by jillmakescakes

Ok, as long as you promise not to be too mean.....


(grimace) I charged $75.00. My logic was $25.00 per car. (more grimace)

I was thinking after it was done that $125-$150 would have been more appropriate.




I think you have carved out a great pricing plan for this cake. I agree that $150 to $175 is perfect for the next ones.

I don't think anyone could be mean to you.
You're doing great, Cake-Buddy.

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sugarcheryl Posted 6 Apr 2009 , 12:11am
post #40 of 47

Don't beat yourself up that's not to bad charging 75.00. At least you know the next time. We all have to go through this it's part of learning and better our technique and skills.

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littlecake Posted 6 Apr 2009 , 12:12am
post #41 of 47

sometimes you don't know how to charge until after you've made one.

we are all still learning what to do.

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-K8memphis Posted 6 Apr 2009 , 12:16am
post #42 of 47

I think pricing is an artform in itself, seriously.

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CakeRN Posted 6 Apr 2009 , 12:16am
post #43 of 47

Ok...so 75 is not too bad and you learned that it was a whole lot more work than what you got paid for. I think pricing is a learning experience as well as making cakes. Now you need to start putting pictures on here ...

Teri

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mooj Posted 6 Apr 2009 , 1:30am
post #44 of 47

My friends all tell me that I undercharge too - maybe what we need is a cake "agent" to be the one to tell folks how much to pay and then we can just be the designers! When someone asks me to reproduce a cake that I've already done I usually go up some on the price because I know how many hours I spent making the original.

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classiccake Posted 6 Apr 2009 , 1:40am
post #45 of 47

We all do that Jill. I am horrible at pricing cakes. People assume that I charge alot because I am in Carmel (that is Indiana folks! One of the wealthiest areas in the mid-west.) But that is not the case. I often have an employee come and ask me what to charge. I name a price and they say XX dollars more and then I say SURE!

I could show you some confessions also!

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kellertur Posted 6 Apr 2009 , 1:52am
post #46 of 47
Quote:
Originally Posted by classiccake


She said she was not going to tell her guests... icon_eek.gif.




(directed at customer, not you classiccake)

This kind of dishonesty really gets under my skin. This is exactly why very few people handle MY food. thumbsdown.gif

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jouj Posted 6 Apr 2009 , 6:55am
post #47 of 47

jillmakescakes: don't beat yourself up, just consider it a "prototype cake" as Indydebi said.



Quote:
Originally Posted by littlecake

sometimes you don't know how to charge until after you've made one.

we are all still learning what to do.





That's what I was talking about, when you're trying a new cake, it's hard to determine cost and difficulty, until after you've done it. icon_smile.gif

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