This has to do with samplings.

I still have about a 50% no show rate on my samplings, and when they do show my on spot booking rate is 99% (I've only had 1 not book on spot in the last 2 years and she ended up booking a few months out from her wedding and at a 10% increase in price because she missed the guarantee date by 2 months). But I digress...

I have tried the must leave CC info incase of no show, and the out & out charging and then crediting the fee to the order when they book, both have not been met well with the public. I end up with no sampling appointment at all, or I get "everyone else gives free samplings" Well I can't afford to give them free unless they actually book their order with me. And because my hit or miss rate for the samplings has been about 50%, I am losing money .

So I am thinking about trying the once a month tasting event now that we have our dance studio going...only problem is the area I live in is a big destination wedding location...very few local brides 90% of my brides are from out of town and of those about 30% are out of state. So the issue is they call they are only going to be in town for one day or two days on a set schedule. If that date doesn't fall on my sampling date then I loose the opportunity to service them.

Are there any other fellow cakers out there who also live in areas that tend to be destination wedding areas that most your brides are not locals? and how do you handle samplings, and making sure they actually come to the sampling? Yes I get all contact info, and of course you know the drill, you confirm, they say yes, 15 min after sampling appointment no show you call and phone is not answered, voicemails not returned, no call to you... I have to get this undercontrol because it is hurting my bottom line. Oh I live close to Randolf Airforce Base and an Army base as well so I also get alot of bride & groom that are in the service so they really can only come and do samplings when they are granted a LOA.

Any help will be appreciated. (did not have this issue at all in Houston...but here...never saw this issue coming, so I have no reference of knowledge on this to draw from...LOL)

With the destination wedding and military scenario, I do think it would work to your advantage to keep scheduling specific appointment times.

I would continue to charge the credit card for tastings. Even though you may lose the customer, you still need to protect yourself.
People are going to complain so you need to come up with a really polite way to explain it to them. Somebody else here on CC might be able to come up with a good way to phrase it. (Indydebi, maybe even though I know her tastings are free, but she's great with words). I just can't think of something at the moment.

I don't have a solution, because I'm in your same position about tastings. I don't live near an AFB or anything....but I get about the same response you are getting. "everyone else does free tastings" and then freakin' half of them show up.

Very irritating....it is making me consider quitting the wedding biz altogether and go with a specialty in novelty cakes.

I guess I just wanted to offer some sympathy.

I work with a lot of out-of-town brides and military, and although I do 99% of my consultations on one Sunday a month, I do get the odd one that is off the "schedule".

Have you thought of freezing ALL samples? It sounds as if you are losing money because of the time, effort and product that you are putting into these no-shows. If you freeze samples, at least your time and effort would be cut down. I freeze mine, then cut up cake and plate it, and do the same for my filling.

I do find that the people that do cancel do so because they have had a chance to "shop around" and have found someone else in the meantime - they just forget to call and cancel our appointment. My reminder email usually reminds them to cancel, but I have still had a few slip through!

Edited to add: Just thought of another point...if you have a lot of people from out of town, they may have appointments with 5 different cakers that same day. If you are the 4th, and they book at the 3rd, they are probably not going to call to cancel the appointment. They're probably going to move onto looking for a florist, photographer, etc.! All in the game of long-distance wedding planning I guess!

Do you lose half your sampling appointments when asking for a CC# or all of them? If you are losing half, then I guess you are weeding out the no shows who wouldn't book with you anyway because they are no shows.

No when I ask for a CC they either say they don't have one, or I hear no one else asks for that, or they say they will get back with me. None have ever given me their CC to guarantee their arrival. So I stopped asking. The 50% is of actual booked samplings. Half show, half don't. If they do show I have a 99% book on site rate. Maybe it is as the one poster above stated that they have more than one sampling appointment and instead of going to all they choose someone else before they get to me and so no show, no call, no answering the call.