Skip to content
Bakery and cakes

Take the order, take the payment, bake to a queue.

Let the stock figure be what you can genuinely bake, publish the collection as a slot people book with a minimum notice and a cap, and take the money when the slot is held rather than when the box is handed over.

14-day free trial. No card required.

crate.shop/admin

How do I sell baked goods online?

Sell what you bake as products, and let the stock figure be what you can actually produce rather than what is sitting on a shelf. One count stands behind your store, your chat orders and your counter, so when the day is spoken for the product stops selling itself everywhere at once. Where an order is for a date rather than for now, publish the collection as a slot people book, carrying a minimum notice, a limit on how far ahead it can be taken and a cap on how many you will accept, with the days you are closed blocked out. Take the money, or a deposit, when the slot is held. Then work one queue in slot order instead of scrolling back through threads.

How do you start taking bakery orders?

Getting started

Four steps, in order. Each one is a screen you can open on the first day, not a project.

Set the count to what you can bake

Add what you bake as products and set the count to what you can genuinely produce, not to what is in the cupboard. That single figure stands behind the store, the chat orders and the counter, so the day closes itself the moment it is spoken for rather than at six the next morning.

Publish the collection as a slot people book

Where an order is for a date rather than for now, offer the slot with a minimum notice, a limit on how far ahead it can be taken and a cap on how many you will accept in it. Block out the days you are closed and they stop being offered at all.

Take the money when the slot is held

Ask for payment, or for a deposit, at the moment the booking is made. That is what turns an enquiry into time you have set aside, and it is the single change that removes most of the collections nobody turns up for.

Work one queue

Open the orders list in slot order and work down it. Each order carries its choices, its message and its collection time, and staff accounts mean whoever is on the counter reads the same list you do.

What is different about selling baked goods

What is different here

Every kind of product has a detail that decides whether the software fits. These are the ones that decide it here.

Stock is oven hours, not shelf space

A bakery is not limited by a cupboard, it is limited by what one oven and two hands can do before the shop opens. Setting the count to the day's real capacity is stock expressed in the unit that actually runs out, and because every channel draws down that same figure you cannot promise the same tray twice.

An order for Saturday is a booking, not a basket

A cake for a date is not the same purchase as a loaf for now. Published as a bookable slot it carries a minimum notice, so nobody orders at midnight for the morning, a limit on how far ahead it can be taken and a cap on how many you will accept, and the days you are closed simply never appear.

Collection is an address and an hour, not a message

Most of this trade is collected rather than sent. The collection option states where and when, so a customer reads it instead of asking, and where you also drop locally that is a separate option with its own charge and its own smallest worthwhile order.

Your buyers are already in a thread.

Where you sell

Almost every order for a cake starts as a message with a photograph and a date attached. Keep that conversation and put a real product behind it, so the customer picks the date and pays in the same thread instead of being sent somewhere else to start again.

In your market that usually means Your store, Instagram and In person.

Card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and bank transfer.

Getting paid

Customers pay by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay or bank transfer, and a slot can ask for the whole amount or for a deposit before it is held. Automatic payouts to your bank. Taking the money when the booking is made is what makes it a booking, and the order records exactly what was paid and what, if anything, is still owed.

Money from card sales lands in your bank account on a rolling two-day schedule. Nothing to claim, nothing to withdraw.

  • Card
  • Apple Pay
  • Google Pay
  • Bank transfer

How the buyer collects it.

Delivery

Every order carries the day and the hour it is wanted for, so the queue sorts itself by when things are needed rather than by when they were placed. The collection option states the address and the hours it can be collected in, and a staff account means the person handing the box over is closing off the same order you are looking at.

  • Set the days and the hours you actually hand things over, and the checkout stops offering slots you are not open for.
  • Take the money up front or on collection. Both leave the same record, so the day's takings reconcile either way.
  • Local delivery sits beside pickup as a second option, priced by zone rather than argued over per order.
  • The counter and the store share one stock count, so what sells in the shop is gone from the store too.

What it costs.

One subscription covers the store, the catalog, the order queue, the customer records and the counter. There is no separate charge for selling in chat, and no charge per kind of product.

Priced and paid in US dollars. Every plan opens with a free trial and no card.

Selling baked goods, answered

Can I stop taking orders once the day is full?

Yes. Set the count to what you can genuinely bake and the product stops selling the moment it reaches zero, on your store and in chat at the same time, because both draw down one figure.

Can I insist on notice for a cake?

Yes, where the order is published as a bookable collection slot. The slot carries a minimum notice, so an order placed at midnight for the next morning is declined by the shop rather than by you.

Can I limit how many I accept for one slot?

Yes. A slot carries a capacity, and the days you are closed can be blocked out so they are never offered in the first place.

Can I take a deposit rather than the full amount?

Yes. A booking can ask for a deposit before the slot is held, and what is still owed is recorded on the order rather than in somebody's memory.

Do customers have to leave the chat to order?

No. You can send them the product or raise the order into the same queue yourself. Either way it becomes a real order with a date, a price and a payment against it.

Can my staff work the counter without seeing everything?

Yes. Staff get their own accounts with only the access their job needs, so whoever is serving can work the queue and close off collections without the rest of the business being open to them.

What about my regular weekly customers?

Their orders stay on their customer record, so raising the same order again takes a few taps. It also makes it possible to notice who has stopped ordering, which is harder to spot than it sounds.

Selling something else?

Nearby

The same platform underneath, told in the language of the thing you make.

Start taking orders for the day you can actually bake.

Free for 14 days, no card required. Set the count to what you can bake and publish one collection slot before the next busy weekend.

Start free