I cranked out 600 cupcakes in 13 hours - 3 hours: frostings, 5 hours: baking, 5 hours: decorating - lots of room for efficiency. I settled on five flavors: vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, lemon, plus a new flavor mint chocolate - I thought the light green mint frosting would be a nice addition to the array of frosting colors.
We were determined to have our booth set up by 8am. Alec, Laura, and I were out by 7:07 am - a record early start. It registered 29 degrees on the car thermometer. I'm quickly learning that the weather is a major determinant of customer traffic at the farmers market. We arrive at the farmers market around 7:30 am. We were placed in Bakery Row as promised. I was the last bakery vendor on Bakery Row, situated between the crumpet guy and wooden sculptors artist.
This was the first farmers market where I would be manning the booth alone, at least up until my brother, Randy and my sister-in-law Ellie arrive at 10am. My biggest fear was that a hoard of customers would demand their cupcakes "now!" and I would not be able to work fast enough. Fortunately, business was slow up until Randy and Ellie arrived. At around 11am, there was a steady flow of cupcake samplers and buyers. Randy and Ellie eased into their duties easily and comfortably. Ellie being the natural salesperson - friendly, bubbly, and quickly coming up with catch phrases for reluctant customers, such as "new year's resolutions were made to be broken" and "Get a mini cupcake! It's all about portion control, right?". Even Randy got into the spirit by yelling out "free cupcake samples, help yourself!", making Ellie and I giggle. Randy assisted in every step of the way: folding boxes, adding up totals, taking money, giving change, and pointing out when the sample tray needed replenishing.
Overall, it was a slow Sunday at the farmers market. There wasn't the usual crowds. It felt like a good Thursday. The reception was as always warm and enthusiastic. I got the usual wow's and mmmmm's and I'm never tired of hearing it. It's what keeps me going through the next series of late night baking at the kitchen.
Lessons learned:
1) pre-cut more samples so that I don't have to cut them on the spot losing face time with the customer
2) stick to the core flavors until I build customer loyalty
3) find smaller boxes to accommodate the most popular order: 6 minis
4) make fewer regular sizes and more minis
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1 comment:
Man, I'm sorry I missed watching Randy yell at people, haha. I forget your brother is a pretty efficient guy. Glad to see you keep learning little things to do next time. It's all about trial and error and that can only help every time this Little Piggy goes to (farmer's) market. :p
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