If you love to bake and all your friends and family rave about your creations, then you might want to think about opening a bakery. Before you sell your 1,000th product, there are lots of different decisions that you will need to make. Here is some helpful guidance on opening your own bakery.
Decide on the Type of Bakery
There are several different types of bakeries that you may want to consider. You may choose to open a retail location where you sell your products directly to customers or a wholesale location where you sell your products to restaurants and other locations in your neighborhood. If you choose to open a retail location, then you may want to think about creating delightful breakfast pastries, wedding cakes or breads. Making this choice now will help you in making other important decisions.
Find Your Suppliers and Products
Do some snooping to determine what will sell well in your area. You may even want to work in conjunction with an established business to give potential customers a chance to sample your products and see their reactions. Once you have narrowed down the list of products that you will be selling, then consider what products you need to make those delicious items and find your vendors based on price and reliability.
Decide on a Location
If you will not be operating strictly out of your home kitchen, then make sure to find the right location. Some people find it advantageous to start their business in a startup location where there are mentors and angel investors to help them along the way. You may even find government programs to help you open a bakery. Others choose to open a location in their own neighborhood opting to strike out on their own. You will need a location large enough to hold commercial equipment like mixers available from arrowmixingproducts.com. You may also discover that mixer accessories makes your life much easier when cooking in volume.
Market
You will need to market your business. Taking care of each customer is a great way to build word-of-mouth advertising. Think about advertising on social media as well. You may also want to buy advertising on a radio station or participate in trade shows.
Many people open bakeries and make a lot of money. Following these guidelines is a great place to start. Listen to each customer and learn from the feedback that they give you, and you will be very successful.
Guest author, Lizzie Weakley is a freelance writer from Columbus, Ohio. She went to college at The Ohio State University where she studied communications. In her free time, she enjoys the outdoors and long walks in the park with her 3-year-old husky Snowball. @LizzieWeakley
