I am sorry to say grocery stores can be thanked for alot of the complaints you are recieving.  I used to work in a retail bakery where complaints were handled accordingly.  Then I went to work for a large grocery store chain as it was better for my childrens schedules.  Here the store manager has trained many of the customers to be cronic complainers.  It pays.  They get refunds for almost anything. ie, the cake not being how they thought it would look, not the right shade of a color (even if nothing was specified other than blue ect).  We keep a list of any and all complaints.  There are some that complain  on a regular basis just to, get a refund and a free cake.  The free cake never has any problems, but when they have to pay again, guess what, it is all wrong.  We have asked the store manager if on these customers we can just give them their cakes for free as to not have to deal with the complaints every other time.  " No, we don't want to put the customers on the spot like that. " My favorite was a couple ordered a wedding cake for almost $400.00.  They also informed us they were ordering flowers for on top of the cake from the floral dept in the store.   When taking wedding cake orders we always aske for the earliest and latest delivery time to give us a window to deliver the cake in.  When the girl delivered the cake as she was setting it up, the bride came in and asked where the center pieces were.  The girl didn't know anything about center pieces, called the store, found out there were some, went back for them, set them up and had the mother of the bride sign off on the order with the time given when done that all was set up as ordered.  She even returned to the store and punched out before the latest time given on the order as the latest time they wanted it delivered. Two weeks later the bride called complained that the cake was delievered 2 hrs after the reception had started and didn't have the center pieces, having to bring them even later.  Yes  we dropped the ball on the center pieces, but we didn't know about them. The store manager came back and asked what all happened.   We pulled the order with the signature that it was delivered before the latest time given. Even had the bakery manager pull the time sheet showing that the girl had delivered the cake.  He said he wasn't going to argue with her and gave her a complete refund for the cake and the flowers.  And they wonder why we get the people we get coming in. 

ABusiness owners can generally avoid a lot of these issues by targeting customers who want (and are willing to pay for) a higher quality cake than can be found at a grocery stores.

Wow that is unbelievable!!  I know there are people who pull this stuff.  I can't imagine doing that unless there was truly something wrong with it. 

AThere's an amazing number of people who simply live this way, not intending to ever pay for anything. It's just another form of stealing in my opinion, and the rest of us pay for it.

Sometimes the customer have honest complaints where the clerk ( we go thru alot of sales clerks) misunderstands what the customer wants and we try to correct when possible.  But sad to say there are more customers that have learned that by simply complaining they can get the cake for free or even at a reduced price.  We do keep a list and it is amazing how many have multiple complaints.  There is nothing we can do about it.  I would kill to say to a couple of them " Sorry we seem to be unable to provide the cake you want, maybe you should try going elsewhere."  but I know I would be fired for that.

AGrocery stores often sell cakes at a loss to attract customers so they'll spend money on more profitable items. If you refuse to sell someone a cake (regardless of their bad behavior) the store risks losing all future revenue from that customer, which more than outweighs a free cake every once in a while.