Setting Up Your Baker’s Shop
Your Baker’s Shop works like a traditional store. You pick which days you are open for pickups and/or which days you will be offering deliveries. When you set up your shop you are committing to be open for pickups and/or deliveries on those days. You’ll still have the opportunity to approve or reject each order but your customers will appreciate it if you are open when you say you’ll be open. If you don’t want to commit to consistent ‘open’ days, that’s no problem! Just use the Nosh Day function instead to create one-off pickup/delivery days on days that work for you without any ongoing commitment. The Baker’s Shop feature is designed for those bakers that are committed to being open for pickups and/or deliveries on the same days each week.
To set up your Baker’s Shop, use the “Shop Manager” dropdown menu to navigate to the “Shop Settings” page. When you get to that page, this is what you will see:
Let’s review the input fields and highlight the important aspects of each of them:
Allow Customers to Cancel Orders and Receive a Refund: Use this field to choose whether or not you will allow customers to cancel their orders and receive a refund. Your cancellation policy is your decision and should depend on the complexity of the products you are including in your Bakers Shop. If you do decide to allow cancellations with refunds you are able to establish how much notice they must give you on the next field (“How Many Days Notice Must a Customer Give to Get a Refund.”)
How Many Days Notice Must a Customer Give to Get a Refund: (Note: this field will only show up if you selected “yes” in the “allow customers to cancel orders and receive a refund” field): Use this field to establish how much notice you require from your customers in order to get a refund. For example, if you select “3 days” then your customers must cancel at least 3 days before the date they have arranged to get their order. If they cancel their order 1 day before the Fulfillment Date they will not be eligible for a refund.
Pickup Options:
Offer Pickup on Bakers’ Shop Orders: Select “Yes” in the dropdown menu if you would like to have your customers come and pick up their orders from you at a location of your choice on your “open” days. The pickup location that you pick may be your home, a farmers’ market, or a suitable public place.
Pickup Location Name: Give your pickup location a descriptive name such as “My House,” or “The Steps of the Brooklyn Public Library.”
Location Type: Use the dropdown menu to select the best choice that describes the location that you picked. The choices are: Private Home, Farmers Market, Public Location, Virtual, and Other.
Address: Enter the address of the Pickup Location you have selected. You will have the option to select the box that says “Add to Address Directory” which will save this address for future use. It’s always a good practice to check with Google Maps or a similar web service to make sure that the address comes up correctly. This is important because your customers will likely use a similar app to find your location.
Pickup Time Slots: Your Pickup Time Slots are the days and times each week that you are committing to being “open” for customer pickups. The first step to setting up your Pickup Time Slots is to select the days of the week that you will be open for pickups. For example if you want to be open for pickups on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, check the boxes next to each of those days.
When you check a box next to a day of the week, new fields will appear to the right which will let you select the times you will be available for pickups on the days you selected.
Using the dropdown menus select the times you want to START and STOP having customers meet you at your location to pick up their orders for each of the days you have selected. Note that you can have different START and STOP times for each of your pickup days.
When your customers make a purchase from your Baker’s Shop, they will have the opportunity to select the date and time that they would like to pick up their order. The options they have available to them will be based on the information you provided in this section.
Pickup Instructions: Give any instructions to your customers that will make the pickup process easier. For example – “I will be on the top landing of the steps in front of the Brooklyn Public Library. I’ll be wearing a green shirt that says MARIA’S COOKIES.” or “Message me on CottageNosh.com when you’re outside and I’ll bring your package to your car.”
Pickup Time Slot Interval: The Pickup Time Slot Interval field helps set up the scheduling for pickups. The dropdown menu options are 30 or 60 minutes. For example, if you select “30 minutes” from the dropdown menu, your customers will be able to select 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, 10:30… etc
Pickup Minimum Order: Use the Pickup Minimum Order field to set the minimum order size that you will accept for pickup. For example if you will only accept orders of $20 or more, input “20” into the field. If you don’t have a minimum, you can input $1.
Pickup Allow Tip at Checkout: This field enables you to choose whether you will allow your customers to provide a tip for you at checkout.
Pickup Max Orders per Slot: This field establishes the maximum number of pickups you will accept for a given time interval. For example, if you set your Pickup Time Slot interval to 60 min and you set your Pickup Max Orders per Slot to 5, then you will have up to 5 pickups per every 60 minutes during your pickup window.
Delivery Options:
NOTE that “Delivery” is turned off by default. To see delivery options, use the dropdown menu to select “Yes” in the “Offer Delivery on Fulfillment Day” field.
Offer Delivery on Baker’s Shop Orders: Select “Yes” in the dropdown menu if you would like to make deliveries to your customers on your “open” days.
Delivery Time Slots: Your Delivery Time Slots are the days and times each week that you are committing to being “open” for making deliveries to your customers. The first step to setting up your delivery time slots is to select the days of the week that you will make deliveries. For example if you want to make deliveries on Tuesdays and Thursdays, check the boxes next to each of those days:
When you check a box next to a day of the week, new fields will appear to the right which will let you select the times you will be available for deliveries on the days you selected.
Using the dropdown menus select the times you want to START and STOP making deliveries for each of the days you have selected. Note that you can have different START and STOP times for each of your delivery days.
When your customers make a purchase from your Baker’s Shop, they will have the opportunity to select the date and time that they would like to have their order delivered. The options they have available to them will be based on the information you provided in this section
Delivery Instructions: Give any additional information that will help you to make your deliveries run smoothly. For example “I will ring the doorbell when I get to your house but if nobody answers I will leave the package at the front door,” or “I will message you on CottageNosh.com when I’m outside so you can open the door.”
Delivery Time Slot Interval: The Delivery Time Slot Interval will establish the period of time for each delivery slot. For example, if you select “30 minutes” from the dropdown menu, your customers will be able to select 9:00, 9:30, 10:00, 10:30… etc for deliveries.
Delivery Minimum Order: Input the minimum order price for which you are willing to make deliveries. Typically deliveries take more time and effort than pickups so you may want to make the minimum order size more substantial.
Delivery Allow Tip at Checkout: This field enables you to choose whether you will allow your customers to provide a tip at checkout.
Delivery Max Orders Per Time Slot: This field establishes the maximum number of deliveries you will make in a given Delivery Time Slot Interval. For example, if you set your Delivery Time Slot interval to 60 min and you set your Delivery Max Orders per Slot to 3, then you will have up to 3 deliveries per every 60 minutes. Until you have a sense of how long it takes you to make deliveries we suggest keeping the maximum number of deliveries per time slot to 1 or 2.
Delivery Fee: you may use this field to add a small delivery fee if you choose. Because deliveries take extra time and you may incur fuel costs, adding a nominal fee may make sense for you.
Delivery Zip Codes: Use this field to add the zip codes that you are willing to deliver to. We recommend you limit your delivery area to the 2 or 3 zip codes closest to you in order to ensure on-time deliveries.
Save / Cancel: Remember that you can save your progress on a listing and come back to it later.
How Do I Add Listings to my Baker’s Shop?
You may have noticed that there is no place to add listings (products) in the Shop Settings page. That’s because your listings are automatically added to your Baker’s Shop if you’ve selected that option when you created a listing. Remember, when you Add a Listing there is a prompt that says “This listing will be available in your Nosh Days. Do you also want to make it available in your Shop?” If you selected “Yes” to this prompt that listing will appear in your Baker’s Shop. If you need a refresher on adding or editing your listings, you can check out the Add Listings blog post here.
Eric is a baker, lawyer, scientist, and gardener. He enjoys developing and training health regulations and operating procedures. His favorite nosh is apple blueberry tart.