Cakes on Holiday

If you're looking for Original Boston Coffee Cakes, please be patient. The company is taking the week of July 4 off, so we've temporarily marked all their products as Out of Stock in our system.

Their products aren't displayed on our site right now, but they will return on July 6. In the meantime, could I suggest some nice croissants?

Summertime and Other Acts of God

The nice folks in Chicago have been putting up with some extreme heat. Most people don't like heat waves, and cheesecakes like them even less. As a result of the temperatures and expected severe weather, I've been advised by JR Bakery that they will be unable to ship any cheesecakes today. They expect to resume shipping tomorrow, and in the meantime, all of the cakes from Bittersweet Pastries are available for overnight delivery.

There's no way to plan for these events, short of asterisking every page in the site with the text, "Excepting Acts of God." That's a term your insurance agent might use if you file a claim after lightning hits your house.

We rely on the expertise of our partner bakeries to determine when shipping is and isn't feasible. Up here in the Boston area, I know how disruptive blizzards can be, but I'm lucky enough to have a regional Post Office sorting center a short mush up the road. If they tell me that our products won't get out in time, I'll hold off on shipping.

We make every effort to deliver on time because we know how important that is to our customers. If you ever place an order that we cannot ship due to weather or other extreme conditions, we will let you know and work with you to find either an alternative on our site or a competitor who can meet your needs.

4th of July Shipping

Just a note today to let you know what's happening with the upcoming July 4 holiday. Since the 4th falls on a Monday, any order placed after 2PM on Thursday, June 30, will not be shipped until July 5, unless Saturday Delivery is chosen.

Our partner bakeries will be closed on Sunday, July 3, and Monday, July 4.

Then it's business as usual until Labor Day.

But is it antibacterial?

In a happy Dickensian moment, the good folks over at Pew Research have released their annual survey on how Americans feel about the press. The summary's long and dense, just the thing to dive into on a Monday morning.

Really, Pew guys, Monday morning? I've got to spend a few minutes chafing at Harry Knowles' foaming middleschooler drivel over at Aint It Cool News just to remember that I can read. If you want me, and the rest of weekending America, to decipher sentences such as "By wide margins, more Americans give favorable than unfavorable ratings to their daily newspaper (80%-20%), local TV news (79%-21%), and cable TV news networks (79%-21%), among those able to rate these organizations," then release this stuff on a Tuesday.

This gets Dickensian because I'd planned all along to talk about the genius marketing that catpulted Fox News Channel to the top of the cable news ratings, and mention why your bleach might be lying to you.

Here's a couple of interesting points from the Pew survey: 42% of those surveyed said news organizations "stand up for America"; 40% said news organizations are "too critical of America"--that's kind of their job, you know; and 72% say that news organizations tend to favor one side.

I hope the marketing department at Fox News gets hefty bonuses that let them afford those waterfront mansions that are so popular with the kids, because they've earned them. Getting almost three quarters of America to agree on anything is an accomplishment in itself; doing it to boost ratings is genius.

And they did it with three little words: fair and balanced. When Fox News hit the air on October 7, 1996, CNN already owned the lion's share of cable news viewers. Fox offered a programming alternative by stressing commentary over reporting, and started spreading those three little words around.

Now as someone who once made a living as a journalist, I can tell you that there's no such thing as a "biased" newsroom. Reporters, real reporters who aren't of the Nancy Grace opinion-first school, take their commitment to evenhanded coverage very seriously. Saying that a news channel is "fair and balanced" is akin to saying "water quenches thirst."

And nowhere in that "fair and balanced" statement does Fox suggest that other news outlets are skewing the news. But if you're CNN or the New York Times, you know that somewhere, someone is asking that question, and you can't answer it by saying, "Well we're not."

All you can do is point to the obvious bias in shows like the O'Reilly Factor and say, "How fair and balanced is that guy, Fox?" Which feeds right back into the marketing loop, because now the people who agree with O'Reilly are saying, "You know, Fox is really fair and balanced, because O'Reilly isn't on CNN."

Fox can answer the biased question by pointing to Alan Colmes and Greta van Susteren. Meanwhile poor Wolf Blitzer is trying to do the kind of evenhanded journalism he's done for years and watching his viewers head for Fox.

A couple of years back, one of the bleach companies stuck the word "antibacterial" on their bottles and went as far as to commission a computer-animated TV commercial that featured two bottles of Brand X bleach complaining that their labels didn't have the word "antibacterial." Never mind that all bleach is antibacterial--that's kind of its job, you know--the company that gets out first gets to make the claim.

I'm accepting bids from the likes of Aquafina and Perrier for the rights to "It quenches thirst." And if the research is right, I might change our slogan to "1-800-Bakery.com--Baked in ovens."

Don't Be So British

The good folks in the UK, it seems, like to buy their food in stores, and spend twice as much at specialty shops--like the muffin man's shop on Drury Lane--as they do on online groceries. Freshness is paramount, and it's worth noting that a lot of Europeans visit markets or grocery stores daily, while Americans make a weekly sojourn to the supermarket to restock the refrigerator.

That's not the sort of thing I want to read in the morning, because it leaves me feeling that I could put the word "fresh" in giant botalic text all over every product page and none of these Bretons would care. We don't sell to England, so it's not my problem, but should I really take comfort in the notion that Americans are less concerned with the freshness of their food?

We seem to be more concerned about what's in our food than how new it is. Organic foods are gaining shelf space at Target, and grocers nationwide are watching sales disappear to specialty retailers who offer organic products.

We're also less afraid to try new things now, which will make Mom happy.

For what it's worth, I think we take freshness for granted. Walk into any supermarket and take a look at the produce aisle. Here's a row of open refrigerator cases in stuffed like a Roman baccanalia with fruits and vegetables in a carnival midway of colors chosen just as much for their mouthwatering appearance as their food value.

No need to ask if it's fresh, because it looks fresh. Once the consumer stops worrying about whether vegetable X is good, they're free to ask if it's good for them. This flies in the face of our brave new world of genetically modified and cloned superfoods, and I'll be amazed if the introduction of said superfoods doesn't drive organic food sales even higher.

There's no preservatives in our Croissants, by the way. They're probably not good for you in the same way as, say, a fresh garden salad, but I'm going to go eat some anyway.

When Marketing Attacks

Note to the good folks over at Snapple: Check the weather report before you try to erect the world's largest frozen treat. If I'm not mistaken, this is the largest dessert-related disaster to hit a major city since molasses spilled across Boston's North End back in 1919. Nobody was hurt in New York, but some witnesses reported that Snapple spokesgal Wendy was seen floating away in a strawberry-kiwi river.

Meanwhile, our friends at the FDA are close to giving food and milk from cloned animals the go-ahead for consumer sales. I'll confess that I find the concept of cloned food, or food from the descendants of cloned animals, rather unappetizing. With the trend toward organic foods increasing in America, it'll be interesting to see how they market this stuff.

I just hope they don't use those damn dancing popups that appear on the Financial Times site. If you use Yahoo! Mail, you've seen them there as well. These are the "next generation popups" that appear in the same window and get in the way of the content by placing themselves on top of it.

The theory seems to be that we won't mind waiting a few seconds to look at an ad before we read what's on the page. The theory is garbage, and you can prove it yourself with this little experiment:

First, find a magazine and cut out a full-page ad. For best results, choose an ad for mortgage refinancing or prescription medication.

Next, find someone who's reading a newspaper. Family members will do, but for maximum effect, choose a complete stranger on the train or at the local Starbucks.

Wait until your victim--er, subject--turns the page in the newspaper. Reach over the top of the newspaper, and wave the ad over the page for a few seconds. Repeat each time the page is turned, or until the authorities are called.

Armed with the results of your research, sit up all night wondering who thought these ads were a good idea, and why reputable Web sites were foolish enough to allow them. When you give up in frustration (and you will), vow to stop using sites that display these ads.

I don't like Mondays

With all the emphasis on keeping commerce running in this technological age, you'd think Monday delivery would be a simple thing. It's not, at least if you're dealing with baked goods.

Shipping companies promise the world on time or to get the business of shipping done, just as long as you don't ask them to do it on a Sunday. Here lies one of the last bottlenecks between the business world as it was and the always-open retailing environment of the Web.

We used to have these things called "weekends" when stores closed early and people didn't shop. E-commerce may have changed our buying habits, but the shippers still like their Sundays off. Not a problem if you're throwing books or software in a box. Big problem if you're trying to ship birthday cakes or deliver something for a Sunday holiday like Father's Day or Mother's Day.

Because we ship some of our products overnight to ensure freshness, and because UPS and FedEx are closed on Sunday, we can't deliver those products on Monday. That's reality for everyone in e-commerce land, but it hits us a little harder.

The U.S. Postal Service has stepped into the breech somewhat, offering Sunday delivery from regional sorting centers. If one of our partner bakeries happens to be near one of these, it's a great deal, but most of them aren't. I think it's a matter of time before UPS or FedEx steps up and adds Sunday drop-off and delivery to their schedule. With an increasing number of perishables appearing in online stores, and with customers clamoring for faster delivery, we could see those extended shipping hours within two years.

Until then, we can't deliver some products on Monday.

Good News, Bad News

Rumors are flying that the good folks at Google have an alternative to PayPal in the works. If anyone from the Googleplex happens by here, drop me an e-mail, as I'd love for our site to be part of the beta. I love Google, and not just because they bring the most customers to our site.

Google is a triumph of well-thought-out design. I respect that in the same way I respect the Mac OS. Yahoo ought to have learned something about building a better web page from Google by now. Why they insist on leading search results with paid sponsorship is beyond me. It's confusing to the user, which benefits neither the advertiser nor Yahoo as a search engine. Move paid search results aside, please, and let me click on them by choice, not by accident.

Meanwhile, the DMOZ folks suspended their Site Submission Status forum rather quietly a month ago. So quietly, in fact, that I wasn't aware of this until today, when I went looking for it. I'll take a wild guess that this has a lot to do with the general negativity toward DMOZ these days. With allegations of corruption and favoritism hanging heavy over the Web, this is not the tactic to take. It's the equivalent of turning off the phone at customer service because you don't want to listen to the complaints.

Guess what, DMOZ? That's part of being in business. I could question the decisions others have made to vest so much importance in an all-volunteer project. But in business, we operate on trust, and the real fault lies when someone makes a promise that they cannot keep. DMOZ should either reestablish transparency with its users and get things back on track or shut down.

Just the (Nutrition) Facts, Ma'am

The good folks over at the USDA have gone and updated the food guide pyramid again. The big difference between this one and the last one is that you can't tell how many servings of food group X you're expected to ingest without telling them your age, sex, and how little exercise you get each day.

I'm supposed to get 7 teaspoons of oils a day, which I guess I'll mix into my coffee. I should also "Aim for at least 4 whole grains a day," whatever that means. There goes my Atkins diet, and I feel the shadowy influence of the Wheat Foods Council at work here, especially given that the Council links to the Food Pyramid in the first paragraph of their FAQ.

It's been a tough couple of years for wheat, what with the low-carb craze driving bread sales lower than the Nile in the dry season. But I'm tired of these special interests nosing their way into every government program. I don't see anything saying how much pork I should eat. Probably because they spent their money on a nifty pork website instead of lobbying the Department of Agriculture.

I'm also at a complete loss as to how much Chocolate Almond Decadence Cake I should consume. Bakers never did have a good presence on Capitol Hill. Breads make the list, of course, and we'll be adding more of those very soon.

Another Blog on the Web, Part II

...we don't need no validation...we don't need no xml...

Here's a new way to lose your job: write a blog. Amid the sob stories here from people who should have thought twice and blogged once are some of those nifty statistics we all thrive on: 8 million adult Americans have blogged, and 32 million Americans read blogs.

In other words, everybody's doing it. It's a latter-day Macarena. You're not cool if you don't Blog. Can I call you sometime? Not until I get an RSS feed and a PageRank of 6? I guess you do need your standards.

Everybody's doing it is the worst marketing philosophy out there. Someday I'll sit down and really complain about message overload and how it's wrecking everyone's day, but for now, I want to focus on the bandwagon approach to marketing.

I performed last night at a club in Cambridge called the All Asia. (Call to ask about karaoke. They'll tell you they don't have it.) It's one of those joints where you can't see through the windows because they're covered in flyers hued across the Staples copy center colored paper rainbow, proclaiming the imminent arrival of bands for the next month.

Everybody tries to scream out from their meager 8 1/2 by 11 piece of window. As a result, nobody does. The more outrageous the artwork gets, the more it succumbs to Dadaist reality. Like a downtown wall covered in graffiti it becomes harsh and ugly, repellant even as it tries to invite.

Why volunteer to be part of that noise? Because everybody's doing it. Never mind that those flyers seldom put a person in a seat. Everybody's doing it.

Wouldn't it be better to do something else, to break away from the clutter and find some new way to reach the audience?

Can't be bothered with that question. I've got to make another flyer.

Another Blog on the Web, Part I

...a blogspot in the online album...blogger, what else did you write for me?

I'm skipping the links today, tired as I am from laying awake in sweltering steam heat last night, wondering why anybody lives around here at this time of year. Massachusetts has two seasons: snow and steam, and we get about a week between them when it's pleasant.

This year, it rained for that week.

One thing I wasn't losing sleep over last night was this blog, even though every marketing company in America seems to think that should be my top priority. My inbox is full of this stuff.

Do you have a blog? Do you update every day? Are you syndicating in RSS XML to My Yahoo! and updating your posts 10 times a day? No? Then you're doomed! Everyone else is doing this! What's wrong with you? Why do you want to fail? Stop reading this and go write in your blog now or you'll never see a customer again!

I paraphrase, but the tone is accurate. Just once I'd like to see someone send me a flirty marketing pitch instead of this gloom and doom stuff. "Hey, nice site you've got there. Maybe I could come over and we could talk about it."

Instead it's Blog this and Blog that and Blahg Blahg Blahg. I remember when we called them "diaries." Life was simpler back then, in the halcyon days of 1998.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, only that this is the latest marketing panacea in a trend that predates the jpeg. Remember when everyone was going to need Java to succeed? Or when B2B was going to kick B2C off the Web? Or when wireless was the most crucial enterprise deployment platform? How many successful sites got to be that way by jumping from trend to trend? And what is it about e-commerce that makes everyone think we need a new set of rules?

There's a Chinese restaurant on Route 1 in Saugus, Massachusetts, called the Kowloon. It's been open every day since the 1950s. The food's good, the drinks are wicked, and the Polynesian Room has to be seen to be believed. The businesses around them come and go, but they stay open, serving the same great food and drinks. They've proven immune to every diet trend and culture change. You'll be waiting an hour for a table on Friday or Saturday night.

They did all that without a blog. Go figure.

Give Dad a Pie for Father's Day

In comedy, you never want to be called a hack. Short for "hackneyed," a hack is someone who trots out tired ideas that have been done to death. Nobody wants another joke about airline food, no matter how clever it is.

Don't tell that to the ad agencies who pollute our TV viewing with hack concepts. If it's June, somebody on TV is getting a tie for Father's Day. Ha ha ha, that old chestnut.

But as sure as airline food is unpalatable, people give Dad a tie for father's day. If you can put up with needless Java doohickies flying around your browser window, you can check the Father's Day Retail Forecast over at About.com, where you'll see that 31.6% of people plan to buy "clothing" for Father's Day. Yet a combined 52% of Dads don't want clothing for Father's Day according to a certainly unbiased study conducted by Best Buy and published by CNN/Money, albeit with the appropriate disclaimers.

"Dad wants technology," claims the study, which found that 28% of fathers groaned at any gift with "World's Best Dad" on it. Dad would rather have a plasma screen--on sale now at Best Buy--it seems. Confidence in the news media has slumped to an all-time low, by the way.

Ties are the most hacktacular gift you can give on Father's Day. Why not try tarts instead? Or how about a dozen baby Boston Coffee Cakes? You can always put "#1 Father" on the gift card.

We'll be taking orders until June 16 for Father's Day.

Friendlier shopping

I've simplified the shopping process. Instead of those nasty pulldown shipping menus, we now have radio buttons. You can see an example on the Chocolate Chip Brownies page.

Solving one problem causes two more, of course. If you buy the abovementioned brownies, you'll see a Shipping Estimate in your Shopping Cart and Shipping Method on the Checkout screen. This is because we haven't assigned fixed shipping prices to everything in the catalog yet. Once we do, those confusing choices will be gone forever.

Until then, if you see shipping choices with values of $0.00, it means that you've already chosen your shipping method, so you can ignore them.

Jakob Nielsen would have my head for this, maybe with a little mercy for using radio buttons.

Can't find it?

If you hang around here long enough, you'll notice that products sometimes disappear from our site. Most often these are seasonal items, like pumpkin bread or Valentine petits fours that need a specific ingredient that isn't available or only have holiday appeal.

Rarely, very rarely, it's because a bakery has dropped the ball once too often. I don't enjoy having to remove batches of products from our site, but our commitment to our customers makes it an unpleasant necessity. I'd rather we sell one product that we know will arrive fresh and on time than a hundred products that might never get there.

If you ever find one of your favorites missing, toss me an e-mail and I'll either tell you why it's gone or put you in touch with the bakery that makes it.

If you're just looking for something, and we don't have it, that's another matter. So I'm going to try an experiment here that may become a regular feature on the site.

If we don't have something you want, toss me an e-mail. I'll track it down on the web and post the URL here on the Bakeryblog. You can also use the Comments section to post enquiries.

I'll also post URLs for requests that come in over the phone. If you order something and you like it, let me know, and we'll see about adding their products to our site, as long as they can ship to the U.S.

To get started, here's a few requests from the last two days. Please note that we don't endorse these sites, we're just providing their information as a service to our customers.

For cake delivery in England, visit Caketoppers.co.uk

For egg-free cakes, visit sitckyfingersbakery.com

And for the gentleman from New York looking for Baked Alaska, I'll admit that I'm stumped. I don't think anyone delivers this, probably because of the ice cream involved, but if you're in Manhattan, head over to Delmonico's at 56 Beaver Street. They invented the stuff, and they've got it to go. You might want to stay off their web site though, as it's nothing but Flash.