I can’t say I went in to the Bake Sale with any kind of goal in mind, but the UNA International Choir’s President said that we’d love to hit $1000.  I honestly thought we had no hope – however, in actual fact, we were just shy of $1,100, I’m told that’s very impressive for a bake sale, but since it was my first one, I’ve nothing to compare it to.

I’ve thought about some tips, hints and notes that I want to document, for my own reference as well as perhaps helping those who are inclined to have a bake sale of their own.

Timing and location are important

Having a bake sale, in Lent of all times, when a lot of people are fasting, was, in retrospect, perhaps not the smartest of ideas, but that didn’t stop us, we ROCKED.  So much so, that there’s talk of having another one in a month or two.

Place your table in a high foot-fall area, I chose an international store, with food from over fifty countries.  A place called Phoenicia, a store that is a great friend to the choir and a wonderful force in the community.  I also chose a Sunday, one of the busiest times of the week for the store.

Give some thought to other events in the area, are you coinciding your sale with another event?

Ask for help

Ask family and friends to join in.  I put out a call to all of my local-based friends (which, in Houston covers a wide area), I asked them if they had the time and inclination (a lot of my friends are avid bakers) to bake something yummy and I was greeted with an overwhelmingly positive response.

One friend brought three dozen cupcakes, another, two dozen cupcakes, the third brought allergen-friendly brownies and caramel shortbreads, another brought dropped scones and apple triangles, one brought rice krispie treats and brownies, and two more bought water and soda and the help just kept coming – it was fab! You may be surprised who comes out of the woodwork to help out!

Pick a theme

Being that this bake sale was in aid of our United Nations Association International Choir, we encompassed this into our baking and baked with an International theme.  We ended up with baked goods from all over the world, England, Ireland, Wales, France, Canada, Austria, Vietnam and Columbia to name but a few countries that were represented.

I think we’ll ‘lean’ on this theme a little more going forward, I didn’t realise just how popular ‘foreign’ baked goods would be, next time, we’ll even advertise it as an International bake sale with baked goods from all over the world.

Delegate

This isn’t something I’m overly good at, but, with such a large undertaking, I deemed it a necessity for a successful event.

I asked for choir members making a donation to the bake sale to portion and package their own baked goods.

I know a lot of online blogs tell you not to do this, for fear of unequal apportioning etc.  However, I didn’t have any problem with unequal portion sizes and it took a lot of pressure off me, spreading out the work so I didn’t end up having to do the lion’s share of the work.

Each member also provided us with a list of ingredients for their baked goods, so we wouldn’t be asked about an item and not know what was in it.

Let your customers know where you are going to donate the money raised by your sale. They may be more inclined to buy more goodies.

Offer a selection

Another contradiction to that which you’ll read online on other blogs, they will tell you to restrict choices, only offer a few select items.  However, I discovered that people like having a selection.  A both sweet AND savoury selection – quiche, savoury breads and muffins sold better than I could have expected.

It’s also important to have an allergen-friendly selection, my friend Crystal baked gluten and lactose free brownies and caramel shortbread and people were thrilled to see the options available to them.

I’d definitely make an active effort to bake some allergen-friendly treats for our next bake sale.  We had a lot of people inquire as to whether we had any sugar-free or egg-free items available, so that, too, will be my focus for any subsequent bake sales we have.

People love brownies.  Have plenty!  Have more than you think you can sell!

Like I said, people like to have choices available to them!

Packaging is of paramount importance

It’s all in the packaging!

I can’t begin to convey the importance of making things look attractive and pleasing to the eye.  The cupcake packaging idea I got from Pinterest and, although it was very time consuming, it was definitely both a selling point and an attention grabber.

The items that were nicely packaged sold before those which were not, it’s as simple as that.  Give packaging some thought, it’s easy to make baked goods look good with minimal additional cost – add a ribbon here, or buy a cheap goodie-box there makes a world of difference!

While I’m talking about making things pretty, if you’re doing a cake or bread, frosting or even a drizzle of glaze will make it a little more interesting and help it sell better at your sale.

Advertise

Get the word out!!

Newspapers, Social Media (Facebook, Twitter etc), bulletin boards in workplace offices, church bulletins, anywhere and everywhere to tell the world (or at least the local areas) about your bake sale.

Pricing

Again, most blogs online tell you to price cheaply, 25c here, 50c there, however, my ‘controversial’ advice would be do not under-price your goods.  People are willing to pay more than you would expect them to.

Here’s the price points I used;

Cupcakes $1.50, half dozen for $7 (saving of $2) and a dozen for $12 (savings of $6)

Small cakes and breads $5 each (we started at $3, but they sold like hot cakes ‘scuse the pun) and people happily paid $5 a piece for them and the ‘hike’ didn’t stop people from buying them.

Pies and Large Cakes $10 each (one of our choir members brought a lemon pie and as soon as it was unpacked it was snatched up, dish and all for $15!)

Cookies (dependent on size; med-large)
$0.50 each
$5.00 for 12

Brownies and bars
Large pan $8
Small $5 (this was one of our best sellers, we ended up cutting the large pans and making them small pans)
Individual (3″ slices) 2 for $3

All drinks (tins and bottled water) $1

The Cupcakes didn’t sell as well as expected, in spite of being packaged very nicely, only around 70 out of around the 150 baked, were sold.  This could possibly be down to flavour choice as well – go with what people know, I think if I’d gone with chocolate and carrot cake, people would have been more receptive!

Donation

If you’re fundraising for a cause, ensure you have a ‘donations jar’ on your table.  People passing by, who may not wish to buy items, but who have a few loose dollars to hand can donate them to a good cause.

Be flexible

If someone wants to buy something but doesn’t *quite* have enough for what they want, take their ‘best offer’, be flexible.  Some money is better than no money!

If possible, accept more than one form of payment, we had a credit card swipe machine attached to a cell phone – we took quite a substantial amount of our money through credit cards, as many people don’t carry cash these days.

You can pick up one of the little machine you use to swipe credit cards, from here, for free, https://squareup.com/ you swipe it, it direct-deposits each night in to your bank account, though they do take 2.75% in fees.

Supplies

For your sale you will need table(s), tablecloth(s), cash box (with small bills and change), napkins, paper plates, clear plastic wrap, trash can, bags for the trash can, price list, a knife to cut baked treats brought directly to the sale, cellophane bags, ribbon, pricing stickers.

Other information

Each item needs to be individually priced.

You will need at least four volunteers to ‘man’ the actual sale, we had upwards of six volunteers and a few of them stood out front, handing out postcards for our upcoming concert and telling the people about our choir and what we stand for.

We also had one lady hollering at the top of her lungs to bring people over to the stall – which worked better than I thought it would! LOL!!

You’ll want to have drinks on hand for the volunteers, possibly snacks too – our President brought sandwiches for the team, which was very sweet of her.

If you are outdoors, make sure there is plenty of shade to ensure perishable goods don’t melt an important factor, especially if, like us, you are based in sunny, hot, Texas!

We are hoping to host another Bake Sale at the end of April – I’ll be sure to take more (and better) pictures, maybe even get one of me in there somewhere, I was just so busy that day, that pictures were almost an afterthought!