http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-photo_1247587.html

I would charge approx. £75 for that cake if it was as small as I imagined (25 servings) if it was bigger say 40 servings £120. Iftheywanted it in black instead of white then I would charge an extra £15 as I buy black ready coloured

Yesterday I went on to another bakers website and saw that they charged £125 for their piano cake (a different one). I quoted them for £110 (I was going to use a 10" tin to carve it from thefore my cake may have been bigger than on the picture) and they found it too expensive. It was going to be an eggless chocolate cake. Was I asking for too much? A 10" serves 40 but it would have been carved so it may serve 30-35.

I dont think you were asking to much at all, i find us brits have a hard preception of ' How much For cake?'

In the moring I deciced to reply back to the e-mail (she is a colleage of a relative) and dropped the price down to £80. My relative found me this prospective customer plus her son is getting engaged but they both found my prices too high. Thats 2 cistomers which I have lost...

I think you quoted a resonable price but many people are used to seeing cakes in the supermarkets and M&S and think they can get a hand made cake cheap. For every customer that you get you will find yourself loosing 3. It is a hard industry to get into when the world is in ressession as a cake is a luxury and people will buy a nasty shop bought cake for £10 and think they have save a fortune on not buying a specially handmade cake.

- why did you charge your original price? i am assuming it is because you have a pricing structure in place, to make ur wage, and to make profit.

- why did you suddenly knock £30 off? how did you explain that to the customer? did you still cover your costs and make a profit? make more than the minimum wage?

to that customer, you are now someone who does not have a set price, you are someone who can be haggled with. that is not the word of mouth advertising you want.
who this customer is, in relation to your family, doesnt matter. these people are not customers you lost - they are people who want your cake but cant afford it, so they will go else where, get something not quite as good for less money. move on to targeting the people who can afford it.
the price certainly doesnt sound too high to me, carved cakes are always more expensive.
xx

First of all, I researched other websites in my area to see how much they charge for a piano cake. I quoted slightly cheaper than that site (instead of £125 I said £110). I even said that my cake would be slightly larger. After the customer said that it was too much I decided as a one-off to drop the price just for this person as I heard she does many parties and that I could get good business from her in the future. This first cake would have been like advertising.