When a customer comes and picks up a birthday cake from you and it is a tiered cake like 10", 8", 6" that's not a wedding cake, I notice that a lot of you dont deliver birthday cakes, do you have it in a tall box for them to take or do they take them out unboxed?
I myself have seen & read to many stories about people who pick up their cakes only to have something happen to them en route.
I understand that the customer takes responsibility for the cake once it leaves your possession, however...
I personally suggest to those getting cakes from me, that have wanted to pick them up themselves, that for a fee ($amt depending on their location) I will deliver the cake and let them know that I bring a long my "fix it kit" in case of emergencies that could happen during transport.
9 times out of 10 I end up delivering.
I usually have the time and I always feel 100% better knowing that the cake arrived to event it was intended for safe and sound.
But that's just me. I know others who will never deliver anything except wedding cakes.
I guess I really didn't answer your inital question about the boxes!!! LOL
I dont usually box tall cakes. I have but when I deliver its usually not an issue.
If anything, I set them in a box/no lid...cake always peeking out.
Thanks for your advice I had thought about just delivering them too for a small fee to make sure as you said that it arrives safely. I asked because I made a cake for my cousin on this weekend it was a 3 tier stacked cake and the my cousin told me that just as they were getting it home a piece of the top of the cake fell off. She was fine with that though because I did it for her for free because she is always doing stuff for me. But her daughter cried and blamed it on her sister who was holding the cake. But my cousin said there was a lot of bumps in the road. So I hated that it happened but I dont know if the issue was something I did wrong as far as support wise or if it came form the bumps but I dont want a paying customer to have that happen to them. So that's why I was wondering how everyone does it. 
On tall stacked tier cakes, I push a long dowel through the whole thing, top to bottom, to help secure all of the layers together to keep just that (top falling off) thing from happening.
You have to sharpen the end of your dowel so it will poke through your cake boards though and make sure up do it straight or theres not much point. Oh...and sometimes you have to use a hammer to bang it through...carefully.
But her daughter cried and blamed it on her sister who was holding the cake. But my cousin said there was a lot of bumps in the road.
THAT is your problem........NEVER put a cake on a seat or a lap!! Always on a flat surface!
As for boxes, I do box ALL of my cakes...I've seen too many stray hairs, bugs, dust bunnies, etc. try to cling to a buttercream iced cake in my day that I NEVER let a cake go without it being completely covered and protected.
I put it in a taller cardboard box and tape the flaps up and then put plastic wrap over the top and tape it, if I'm sending it with a customer. If I'm delivering it, it goes straight into my cake safe!
[/i]
If it's a tiered cake I make my own transport box out of sturdy cardboard boxes. I get a box that's a size closest to the board, I split two seams so the box opens out and I can slide the cake in (or out) instead of reaching down and hoping I don't hit something. I always have a 'grippy' pad (one of those rubber webbed shelf liners) on the bottom of the box to help secure the cake. I also put one of those pads under the box in the trunk of my car--which by the way has a seat that I can keep open so my air conditioning goes to the trunk. I prefer the trunk because it's flat. The grippy pad keeps the cake box from sliding around as well.
I tape the sides of the box up...as well as the lid to make it taller and put plastic over the top if the cake is not taller than the box. My cakes are very cold so the butter cream is solid and I do use a big dowel down the center. So far, so good. I prefer to deliver a tiered cake since most people don't know how to transport one...plus I can get the box back to re-use.
Quote by @%username% on %date%
%body%