By doesn’t time fly when you are busy. I don’t know where the time has gone but I haven’t added a post for ages. I feel like I sometimes need to take a step back to look at what really does need doing in my house and what I can leave for a little while longer. I have a white board chart in my kitchen where I add what the children need to do and what I need to do each day/week. I love crossing the jobs off the board as it makes me feel like I have achieved what I set out to do and it so much more satisfying than a paper list. Sometimes I start to feel like I am neglecting the house which is when I suddenly don’t go near the computer and I go and blitz a room instead but then I might miss out on an important email so I need to be careful with how I run things at home as I am getting busy on the run up to Christmas. Trying to get the children involved more with the running of the house is my main aim for the time being.
I have been so busy baking postal orders and then preparing, baking, sourcing, photographing, packing and printing ready for Christmas Eve Treat Boxes which I announced on my Facebook page on Friday. Already, I have had several orders for these Christmas Eve Boxes which I have been working on nearly all week. A lot of planning and research went into these boxes and I am quite pleased with the outcome. It has been this early Christmas baking which has put me into the mood for Christmas already. Far too soon I know but it has happened and I think it is rubbing off on my children 🙂 These are the treats I have been trying out for my Christmas Eve Treat Box.
Last week, I made time to try out two new ideas to add to the webshop and one of them has been sent on a journey south just to make sure it will travel well so I can then offer it for postal delivery. I am excited about adding these new ideas as I think a webshop and its products constantly need updating and rearranging just to attract new custom. I had an order recently which highlighted the fact that I didn’t have everything right on the webshop so after a couple of tweaks it is running better now, i.e., adding the correct postage. I am thinking of changing the prices slightly too as all these webshops and Paypal and card payment systems take a percentage off the total cost but I am still watching that. Now that my shop is getting busier I don’t think I should change the prices as people must be happy with them but at the same time I am seeing how much is being taking from me in costs of having a webshop, Paypal etc, that maybe I should factor in a bit more to cover these costs too. Something to think about there when I can’t sleep at night.
All of this work has involved many hours on the computer looking at suppliers and contacting them to ask for samples, finding suitable packaging and ingredients which are easily delivered to my door and trying out ideas in the kitchen (which one child told me “is the best part of being my child” – trying what I bake) Fingers crossed these new ideas prove as popular as the products on my webshop.
My next job is to price up what it costs to bake the new ideas and then I can calculate a selling price – this involves looking at what the competition are selling similar products for in the local area as I don’t want to price too low as it suggests poor quality and it may affect the competitors market but at the same time I don’t want to set the price too high and not manage to attract customers. Also, I need to prepare the labels for these products and factor that in to the price. So I am still at the design stage with these products but keep watching for more details.
As you can see, I am nonstop at the moment and as it is the run up to Christmas I think I will only be getting busier in my kitchen. All I want to say is a big THANKYOU to all my customers as you are the reason I keep baking, trying out new ideas, working into the early hours and generally trying my best to run my homebaking business.