vent alert*-so its sunday morning here around 9:30 and i get a call from a girl saying she needs a toy storycake today at 1:00 with pictures of woody and buzz..nothing fancy..hahah..whatever..anyways....first i tell her i cant help her ..cus her lack of planning is not my emergency(got that from cakecentral..lol) and she is going on and on how her lil boy just wanted a cake..so i hang up with her and im thinking...maybe i can try a little one for her..so i call her back and say fine i will do a ten inch roundl one but it will just be blue with some clouds and his name on it..thats the closest thing i can do to toy story with the time i have..she says great..then i tell her to meet me in town around 12:30 cus i will be on my way to church..she says great!! i tell her a price which is 50..im thinking im being reasonable cus its what i normaly charge for a 10 inch and the fact that im rushing one for her..uhhh..yea..so anyways..she says 15? i say no 50..its quiet and she says fine..so we hang up and i start baking asap..she text me 3 min later saying never mind her cake lady called and she is going to do her cake..i think she is lying ..she just didnt want to pay the price i quoted her ..so now i have a ten inch round cake just sitting here...which im sure my kids will eat..im just more mad at myself for trying to help soneone who wanted somthing for nothing..ugh..i wish i could block her number cus i dont want customers like her calling me anymore....another lesson learned in life of priscilla..lol..ugh! you just cant be nice or compassionate anymore!!

[quote
I feel your pain. its really hard when someone calls last minute cos you want to help but the dilema is how do i get a deposit? But that's the only thing you can do is get them to drop a deposit if they are that desperate for a cake they will do it. I had to do a last min for a girl who picked a cake up the night before her party from a company who decided to close on her and give her a cake wreck. Luckily they were trustworthy but i certainly don't like to do it. Chin up and have some tea and cake or give some to a nice neighbour [/quote]

thanks..i think i will invite some of my chums over and make a pot of tea and to go with our cake..lol..i feel better already!

a great way to get a deposit for a last minute cake would be paypal. since it's basically the same as a bank transfer without having to have their bank account number. when i am able to start charging for cakes, i will probably set things up this way so i will always be able to get a deposit from someone even if they are not able to meet me in person.

I had one that called on Wednesday afternoon of an already BUSY upcoming weekend for a cake on Friday. I told her I was booked. Then thought about it and called her back to see what kind of cake she was looking for. If it was just a simple sheet cake or single round cake, I could squeeze it in.

She said she was looking at my website and thought the quilted cake would be fine and she only needed it for about 6 little girls ("I am renting a room at the Hampton Inn for them to have an overnite party"). I quoted her $40 for a small 6" cake. She gets my email address off the website and starts sending me these 2 and 3 tiered creations with fondant roses, pillows, tiaras and such LATE Wednesday night.
Thursday morning, I sent her an email back with a picture of a single tiered cake with quilted pattern on side and a few buttercream roses on top. Told her this was the only style I had time to make at her LATE order and if I didn't hear back from her before 3 in the afternoon, I would consider the order cancelled. She responded that "maybe we weren't a good fit for each other" WTH?????

i dont get people anymore!! im not a bakery ..i make all my cakes per order!! and your customer was right..yall arent good for each other..she needs a genie in a lamp that can make her cake appear not a cake decortor..lol

These people suffer from PACOOMA disease.
"Pull a cake out of my a** disease"--seen only by cake people and usually occur around celebratory events.

If you use paypal is there a fee?

i think there is a small fee..but really its not much for the piece of mind

Some business advice... The more you act like a real business the more people with treat you like a real business, and if you don't value your product then no one else will.

First, if you have a website advertising your cakes and you don't also advertise your base prices, you are asking for calls and cancellations like this. If this woman didn't want to pay that much for a cake she never would have waisted your time in the 1st place. I don't understand "quoting on the fly" either, you need to get a base charge for each cake and stick to it. Then add for special decorations, customizations and premium filling/flavors not included in your basic charge, but should also be a standard price (i.e. it will take me an extra 1 hour @ $25/hour so add that to the base price of the cake).

Use Google Cart, it's much easier to set up and it auto deposits the money in your account after 3 days. You can also just get someone's email address and email them an invoice which sends your customer a link for you to be paid by credit card. Paypal you can't email invoices without an expensive merchant account and you have to manually transfer your money. Lots of people also HATE Paypal, so they refuse to use it. I have never had a single problem with my Google account.

I always, ALWAYS require payment in advance. Even last minute orders, I won't start baking unless they have completed the Google transaction and I've charged their card. They can even pay on their mobile smart phone if they get the email to it. No exceptions.

Oh, I also add a 4% transaction fee to every order to cover Google's cut (same charge as Paypal), and nobody has complained.

Jen