It has happened. I am not upset about it, I know it will happen but people always want something for nothing!

An aquantiance of mine sent me an email about a cake for 15 people. My rate is $3 a serving so I said $45 for the cake $8 for the sunflowers and delivery! She's atleast an hour away and its a toll road. She said well I wanted to stay under $40. I told her to call me, I was going to suggest she pick it up and save on delivery. She emailed me back and said you do amazing work but I found some near me to do it for $35. I just responded ok have a great Birthday. As I said I am not upset but come on She basically wanted me to pay her to take that cake. As my husband said it just isn't worth the stress to take that order!

good for you for handling it so well and not changing your price to make the sale. No reason to be upset, you handled like a professional

What size were you going to make, that only makes 15 servings? Most people charge for the number of servings in the cake, not how many are ordered...basically, "I can make a 6" round that serves 12 or an 8" round that serves 24, which would you prefer?" You shouldn't have to make less profit because they don't need that many servings

Also, $8 for delivery when she lives an hour away down a toll road? If you have to drive an hour to get to her, that's two hours round trip plus paying the toll twice. Your time is worth more than that.

I would have charged her a dollar a mile just for the delivery. You go girl! I wouldnt have turned on my oven for that. Her lose!

I hadn't quoted the price for delivery yet. I had asked her for her address and she hadn't responded! The $8 was for the sunflowers she wanted on the top and then all around the bottom as a border. Was that a fair price for them?

"Not everyone can afford me and that's ok."

Sounds to me like she wanted you to counter offer.
Good job holding your ground to her.

Don't undersell your talent.

Let them eat the production line crap for cheap.

It can be very hard to let a sale go, especially in the beginning. But you did the right thing (and handled it very well). If you "gave in", they (among others) would expect you to do it again! Kudos to you

it was never your order, so you're right not to worry. Good for you for recognizing that you dont NEED ever possible order.

I had a similar story. a bride asked for a quote, gave her my quote and her response was "Well, we're gonna need to find a way to shave $90.00 off that price." My response was, "The only way to do that is to make the cake smaller". Never heard from her again.

$35? She'll probably be getting a "standard" cake with buttercream roses- looking like it came straight from the grocery store. Oh well!

I charge $2.50 per mile for delivery. I had someone once tell me it was way too much and question why is it $2.50/per mile? I sent her the directions so she can see how many miles away it was from my home. She then proceeded to tell me it's "just to deliver the cake!"

My response: "You don't pay for a roundtrip airline ticket for the price of a one-way ticket, do you?"

Dummies.

Don't worry. When she looks at and tastes the other cake she'll be wishing she had ordered from you and probably will next time!

P.S. I also NEVER deliver a single tier, teeny cake that only serves 15 people!

My second month in business, I had a woman call wanting a small cake, maybe a 1/4 sheet and she wanted it delivered in town. For a cake less than $150, I charge $35 for delivery in the local area and when I told her, she had the same response "To deliver a CAKE?!". Yes, ma'am. She hung up and I've never heard from her again. Fine with me, she's not my target market anyway.

Off topic: I love that term "target market". I use it as much as possible.

Some people think that they shouldn't have to pay for delivery and extra things on cake. I don't know where this came from or how it started but its pure nonsense! I like someone you don't have one way for an airplane ticket. Don't people how much gas cost now? Most of us aren't doing this purely for fun.. we want to making a living now just give away free cakes! Our time is precious, driving takes away from the time we could be working on another cake or networking to get more business. For the life of me I can't understand how people constantly down play what we would and think that we don't deserve the prices we charge!