How do I run and track a farmers market bakery stall?
Run a market stall on three numbers: paid pre-orders for collection at the stall, a walk-up forecast from your last four markets, and profit per market after the stall fee, card fees and your hours. Pre-orders are the safe part of the bake; bake them plus the average you sold to walk-up customers at the same market, add a little if you sold out early, and write down what came home. ibakepro, bakery management software used by market bakers from a single weekend stall to several markets a week, takes the pre-orders and costs each market day so you can see which stalls are worth the Saturday.
Pre-orders for collection at the stall
Pre-orders turn the riskiest part of a market (guessing) into a known quantity. Sell them online with payment up front, a fixed collection window and plain instructions: "Collect from stall 14, Saturday 8 to 11am. Unclaimed orders are held until 11:30." Close them early enough to plan the bake; for sourdough that is usually two days before.
Keep pre-orders in their own labelled crate at the stall, ticked off as they go. A regular who pre-orders every week is worth more than three walk-ups, because their loaf is never the one that comes home.
How much to bake
Bake = pre-orders + average walk-up sales at this market over the last 4 weeks + a buffer if you sold out early
- Use sales, not bake counts. If you baked 60 and brought 8 home, walk-up demand was 52, not 60.
- Sold out at 10am? Your sales figure understates demand. Note the time you sold out and add 10 to 15% next week, then check whether it sold.
- Same market, same season. A winter Saturday and a summer Saturday are different markets. Compare like with like.
- Decide what happens to leftovers before the day: the freezer, a cafe, a donation or crumbs. Leftovers you have planned for are a cost; leftovers you have not are a loss.
Cash and card
Start with a counted float and write it down. At pack-down, count cash, take off the float, and record the card reader total separately. Card takings arrive less the processor's fee, so record the fee as a cost, not as lower sales. Keeping the two apart is what lets you check the cash tin against what you sold.
Profit per market, worked
A Saturday market in US dollars. Prices and costs are examples.
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Baked: 80 loaves at US$11, 120 cookies at US$3.50 | |
| Sold: 30 pre-ordered loaves, 44 walk-up loaves, 104 cookies | |
| Takings (74 loaves, 104 cookies) | US$1,178.00 |
| Ingredients and packaging for everything baked (80 x US$1.36, 120 x US$0.40) | US$156.80 |
| Stall fee | US$60.00 |
| Card fees, example 2% on US$825 of card takings | US$16.50 |
| What the day made before your time | US$944.70 |
| Your time: 7 hours baking and 7 at the stall, at US$25 | US$350.00 |
| Profit for the market | US$594.70 |
Count the cost of everything you baked, not just what sold: the 6 loaves and 16 cookies that came home cost US$14.56, and that is the price of the buffer. Divide the profit by the hours to compare markets fairly. A busy market two hours away can earn less per hour than a quiet one round the corner.
After six or eight markets, the record answers the questions that matter: which markets to keep, what to bake more of, and how much buffer you can afford. More on recording each day in how do I track market day sales and profit.
In ibakepro
- Pre-orders for the stall. Sell through your storefront with pickup dates that follow your lead time and the days you trade, or run each week's bake as a drop with a fixed collection date, its own collection instructions and a cap at the number you can bake. On Growth and Business.
- The bake count. Pre-orders land on the bake sheet with everything else, so the market bake starts from a real number.
- Each market as one sale. Record takings, the cost of what you sold and the stall fee, and see revenue and profit by sale type next to your online and custom orders.
- Real costs. Recipe costing works out each loaf and cookie from what you paid for ingredients and packaging, so the cost of goods for each market day is known before you price it.
Takings at the stall go through your own card reader and cash tin; ibakepro records the result rather than ringing up each sale.