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| - I'm a consistent customer of this place, but I feel like there are a lot of improvements to be made. I'm going to use this post as a laundry list of small improvements that could result in success for the business.
-Credit card minimums: Let's move past the fact that the Visa Mastercard cartel says that credit card minimums are actually a punishable offense (pro-tip: if you report to V/MC that a merchant is using minimums for credit card transactions and a V/MC secret shopper confirms this, they run the risk of getting fined in the thousands... very mean pro-tip, but it's there for a reason)... So moving past that, this place is a quickservice bake shop and should be run like one. When the average itemized price of your products is ~5$ and your minimum transaction size is ~10$, it's really annoying! Renegotiate your interchange rates with whoever does your payment processing, but this makes you look novice and makes me choose a place that doesn't force me to overbuy. (full disclosure: used to work in cc finance.)
-Average price points: Turn cupcakes back into a simple consumable or provide a rebate for purchasing multiples. The fact that you don't reward bulk purchases causes me to to purchase less.
-Product quality: I saw in another comment on here that there was unprocessed batter... I've had that problem too. I've also had inconsistent coloring, hardening of cakes or desiccation (eek!) of chocolates (makes me question how old they are)! If you want to command a price premium, your product has to be premium too (not just packaging ;))
In the spirit of being positive, I'll say that my favourite thing about this place is the use of colour! I think that the Ladurée-style muted colours on the counters and walls combined with the almost ostentatious food colouring (I love rainbow cake!) is sweet-tooth inducing! That whole artisinal crap that started in the early 2000s has made companies forget how much fun it is to take advantage of modern design and colour with food! (see Premiere Moisson, Au Pain Dore, etc). You guys have a young spirit, now run your store like you know what you're doing! :)
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