How to judge how much to bake
Feel like you need a crystal ball when you’re planning what to bake and how much? We feel ya! We’ve been trading at local farmers markets and foodie events for a few years now, and it always feels like a gamble when we’re planning our bake list. There are so many variables that can impact your sales. Keep reading to gain some of our insights so far, on what to bake and how much. Let us know you think.
What influences sales
Weather! – Yes! Our glorious, un predictable British weather! This can effect footfall and what customers buy. Most of our events tend to be outside, so this is a huge factor.
Rain will reduce footfall massively, but as traders we can cope with the rain, it’s the wind that is a double whammy. Wind and rain will pretty much kill any event. Customers tend to stay in (who’s blaming them?), and high winds can be dangerous. The wind can blow the rain in and damage stock, if not properly secured gazebos can fly away; damaging your equipment and of course the biggest concern endangering the lives of others. If it’s wet, and windy prepare for a rubbish day, if it’s not cancelled. However, if it’s just a bit rainy, then we tend to crave comfort food such as Salted Caramel, Banoffee and Chocolate Hazelnut.
You’d think that sunny days are perfect? Not always. Especially in Cornwall, if the suns out, most of us will head to the beach, reducing footfall to your event affecting how much your going to sell. Depending on your products, the sun, or heat can damage your stock. We need to keep our out of direct sunlight. Some of our products cope with the sun and heat better than others, such as Lemon, Bakewell and Biscoff, so we’ll consider that too.
The best weather for us, is dry, overcast and no wind. Perfect!
The hardest part is that we start planning and baking about 5 days before a big event. You cant really get an accurate weather report 5 days ahead. We can get a rough idea to help guide us, but weather reports are only really accurate about a day before.
Seasonal
The seasons and time of year can affect what people buy and how much.
In spring and early summer we tend to have a really busy time with foodie events and county shows, however, a lot of people are trying to be good for their “summer body” resulting in fewer sales. Autumn and winter are better for sales as we are all craving comfort food and big cosy jumpers that hide the “summer body”.
The seasons all inspire the flavours. In spring and summer fresh fruity flavours take the spotlight such as Lemon, Strawberries & Cream and White Chocolate & Raspberry. Autumn and winter is all about cosy warming spices, caramel and chocolate. Check out our Cinnamon Swirl, Caramel Pumpkin Spice and Chocolate Orange. Our year round heroes are Oreo, Vanilla Funfetti and Salted Caramel
Entrance fees
Free to attend events always have a much better footfall then pay to enter events. Even £5 per adult and children go free will reduce the numbers. In 2022 we traded at an event with a £20 entrance fee and our takings were terrible. In 2023 the same event was free to attend, but there was a fee to park – we had a blinding weekend, sold out on day one and had to rush fresh stock up there for day 2. Same event in 2024 is £5 for adults and children go free. It’s not been as well attended as 2022, or at least our takings are no where near what they were last year. However, the weather has been against us also.
Duplicate Traders
This shouldn’t happen, but sometimes it does. How this impacts you can depends on the size of the event. At larger events, it’s not such a problem as there’s enough trade to go around, but if the event is small it’s then survival of the fittest. There are ways around the clash if you feel it’s going to be a problem. First of all, you can ask the event organiser for exclusivity in your sector. This isn’t something we do as we like to try and work with everyone. You can contact the event organiser and ask what other traders will be there in your sector, do some research and find out what their UPS (unique selling point) is. Hopefully event organisers book traders who specialise in brownies, donuts, cookies or cakes, so even though your all selling sweet bakery items, you don’t clash completely. That is a good reason to have your own USP. Ours is our buttercream filled cookie sandwiches. We see replicas of them around, but not quite the same as we do them.
Other big events
We’ve found that football is the biggest negative contributing factor. We can be having a great day, then a match starts and everyone disappears!
Other craft events brings in a bigger crowd and better takings. We trade with Truro Farmers Market and once a month we have Cornwall Shop Small join us who tend to be mainly fantastic arts and crafts and then occasionally Made in Cornwall will have an event on in Truro Cathedral which also brings in their customers. When you have lots similar small businesses all trading at the same time in the same vicinity, you will all benefit from each others advertising and customers.
Time of the month
We don’t mean when Aunt Flow comes to visit, although that could encourage a sale, and fee ya on that! We mean payday. Just after payday, which tends to be at the end of the month for most, (but for some is every four weeks or even weekly), sales tend to be good. Towards the end of the month when the things are getting tight expect a reduction in sales. To encourage sales this can be a good time to have a flash sale.
Trends
Trends come and go, although some do stick, not all businesses should follow every trend going. It might not fit with your business, you might have other things you had planned or you just might not want to jump on the band wagon. Take for instance the cookie dough stuffed croissants. You’d think that as we specialise in cookies we’d be all over that, but no. At the time we had a load of other things going on at Cookie Queen and I just didn’t have the head space to jump on that. We might give it a go at a later point.
Trends are a good tool to help you explore, grow and develop your product range. Creating limited edition flavours or bakes is a classic selling tool which can work wonders for all businesses. This can also help to boost your sales if your expecting a quitter trading period or leverage the edge on your competitors at an event.
Our limited editions for Autumn/Winter are Cinnamon Swirl, Caramel Pumpkin Spice and Sticky Toffee & Caramel Cookie Sandwiches.
Previous Reports
After a few years of trading, you’ll get a better sense of how much to bake. One thing we’ve started doing is keeping a diary of our sales, noting the weather and any other factors that might have influenced sales that day. This way, when you’re planning your bake list for the same event a year later, you can refer back for insights and tweak your numbers accordingly. I can’t claim this idea as my own; I know many traders have been doing this for ages, and it was actually a fellow trader who shared it with me. It’s a great reminder to connect with other traders and swap stories. We’re all in this together!
If you haven’t started a diary yet and are using a card reader, they usually come with customizable reports for different dates.
Recap
There are definitely a bunch of things that influence our sales, and I bet there are even more we haven't thought of yet. What I've shared is just our take on it, and we’d really like to hear your thoughts too.
When we plan our bake list, we usually consider a few key points:
• The type of event – is it a big foodie festival or a cozy local farmers market? Does it have an entrance fee that could impact our sales?
• The weather – while a 5-day forecast gives us a hint, we really won’t know for sure until a day or two before.
• Competition – who else will be there selling their goodies?
• Other events happening nearby that could draw crowds away from us for to us?
• The time of the month – does it align with paydays or other spending patterns?
• What did we earn at this event during the same time last year?
Now that we have a rough idea of our expected sales, it’s time to figure out what to bake. What flavours are your customers loving right now?
Bake List
Now that we've shared our insights with you, you can grab a copy of our Bake List spreadsheet to help you organize your baking plans. It's all set up with formulas to assist you in preparing for multiple events. Just start by entering your baked goods and how many of each you aim to sell. At the bottom of each event's column, you'll see your projected earnings. Tweak your options and numbers until you feel confident about your estimates. If you're juggling several events, you'll find your total projected earnings in the bottom right corner. There are helpful notes on the spreadsheet to guide you along the way.
