I have a lady that called me saying she is opening a gym and wants me to make some individually packaged cookies for her to hand out as part of her advertising. She said she will want between 5 and 12 dozen small cookies ind. wrapped. She also wants her logo which she said is a very simple stick figure person on them. I have no idea what to charge her. I told her to come up with her budget and we would go from there. Any suggestions as to an amount per cookie or dozen?
I appreciate your help,
Amy
I sold 400 cookies recently for a school fundraiser. I charged 2.00 for small, 2.50 for medium, and 3.00 for large. They were all individually wrapped and I gave 10% to the school. They were pretty heavily decorated also. 3 colors per cookie with heavy royal icing.
I like to use the no fail sugar cookie recipe
Toba's glaze (cheap and easy)
royal to detail
When I saw your subject line, I thought you were going to be asking about MASS QUANTITY cookies. 12 dozen? That's not mass quantity.
I had a commercial customer who had a standing order for 20 dozen cookies .... every day .... 6 days a week. THAT'S "mass quantity".
I'd charge the same price as a 3 dozen order.
A common error in pricing is thinking that JUST BECAUSE the order is large then the customer gets a volume discount. no, no,no, no, no.
A volume discount is given when the quantity is large enough OR CONSISTENT ENOUGH to enable you to buy in bulk quantities which saves you money,or enables you to work more efficiently, which saves you labor costs. You are then able to pass those savings on to your customer.
If you are not getting any kind of pricing discounts or savings on this order, why are you giving it to your customer cheaper?
My commercial customer who ordered over 100 dozen every week enabled me to be able to buy flour in 50-lb bags at less than one cent a cup instead of in 5-lb bags for over 15 cents a cup. This order enabled me to buy grated orange peel at something like $0.35 an ounce instead of in those little tiny bottles at over $3.00 an ounce. It enabled me to buy 10" cake boxes in bulk at 27 cents a box instead of individually at $1.15 a box. Since I was able to lower my costs, then I was able to lower their price.
(I had to cancel the order due to the catering side volume picking up. They are waiting for my expansion so they can get me back.... their customers are complaining! 
)
If you want to give a discount for PR's sake, that's your call. But don't give a discount just because you think a "lot" of anything automatically gets a lower price. It doesn't.
Well, for me, this is mass quantity. You have very good points that I can appreciate, and oh my Lord how did you do so many at a time? Care to share your secret? One lady suggested baking, decorate and freeze them. Says they thaw out just fine, never tried that. Cookies can be tedious little beasts and I would hate to loose even 1 due to trying something different.
Thanks for your input,
Amy
I did this order when I had a full time job and used my little home kitchen oven. It took me 3 to 5 hours every night. Plus the weddings and caterings I did on the weekends. I functioned for over a year on about 4-5 hours sleep a day.
My point was not to question what you would call "quantity" compared to the majority of the orders you get. My point was to illustrate how a good pricing structure should be set up. If it costs you the same for your supplies, if it takes you the same amount of time to bake them (it still takes 20 minutes per cookie sheet times number of cookie sheets), then your cost is the same for 3 dozen as it is for 12 dozen..... same supplies, same electricity, same labor. If your cost is the same, then why is the customer paying less? That makes zero business sense.
You encourage large quantity orders by offering discounts, when the order merits a discount because the volume actually helps reduce your costs .... reduces the cost of supplies, the cost of labor, the cost of overhead.
To the average consumer, maybe 4 or 6 or 8 dozen is a "lot" to them. But when we, as bakers and business owners, have to look at meeting our overhead and look at our per unit price of materials and supplies, the definition of a "lot" suddenly has two different meanings.
If you do this as a hobby, then price is not an issue. If you do this with the intent of just breaking even, to just make sure you make your cost of supplies back, then price is not an issue. If you do this as a business, you need to factor all of this in before you arbitrarily give "volume" discount by pulling numbers out of the air.
Again .... my intent was not to question your "quantity" definition, but to offer some information on why volume discount is available.
All of my cookies are $1 per inch no matter how many they order. I so agree with Indydeb. If someone were to order an amount that would allow me to buy in 50lb bulk then i would lower price.
I also charge $1.00 each for individual packaging. The cost here is not in my materials but my time. It takes quite a while to wrap all of the cookies. Plus I use curling ribbon and curl all of the ribbon once on.
My price does include up to 3 colors per cookie and up to three colors of ribbon.
As to how i get people to pay that much. Once they taste mine they will pay it. Most of my customers have had Cookie By Designs cookies and think mine taste better so that is what gets them. Mine are a little cheaper than cookies by design, but they would rather spend the money on something they know will be good.
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