This Is How We Do It

I won't go into detail about what cookiepots.com did to deserve my wrath. Suffice it to say that they should have known better, assuming they ever had a modicum of education in an American high school or university.

And at the risk of overreacting to something, let me say that I don't like veiled insults to my company handed out by people who have no idea what they're talking about, especially when these same people have already earned my wrath for doing something that they shouldn't have done in the first place.

So in the interests of educating these people, along with the readers here whom I care about and might wonder about this sort of thing, let me pull back the curtain a little on our operations.

We are not "middle men" who take your order and farm it out to the "real" company and then "hope for the best." Anything and everything you order at 1-800-Bakery.com is shipped direct from a bakery that has several years' experience doing this sort of thing, and we're in constant contact with one about any orders that come in. These bakeries have been hand-selected by us for their quality and attention to customer service, and anyone who fails to live up to our standards soon finds themselves gone from the site.

Almost every product ships on one of our account numbers, so any delivery issues get sent straight to us. In many cases, we're able to get packages delivered even when there's an address problem, thanks to our quick responsiveness to these issues and the volume of things that we ship. We're also able to extend availability of certain products (we had King Cakes for almost a week after they were gone from Randazzo's own site) and provide exclusive products (like our Small Chocolate Lover's Cake) thanks to the personal relationships we've built with our partner bakeries.

In short, cookiepots.com, I'll put our customer service and delivery expertise up against yours any day of the week. I also notice that you lack a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee, and that you specifically state that edible gifts are nonrefundable. We stand behind everything we sell. If a customer is disappointed, that customer gets their money back, or a replacement of equal value. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. Why don't you stand behind your products the way that we stand behind ours?

Until you're ready to stand behind what you sell, I suggest you keep your comments about how other companies do business to yourselves.

A Question for AOL

Why, AOL, do you insist on blocking the e-mails we send to our customers? Don't you realize that our customers like to receive order confirmations and tracking numbers so that they know the things they ordered have actually shipped?

Why did we go through the process of getting white-listed with you last year, only to have this problem creep up again as soon as the calendar turned to 2007?

And how many other companies' e-mails are you needlessly blocking? Quite a few, from what I've heard from your customers. I hear from rather a lot of them, and I always tell them the same thing: Get rid of AOL, or stop using their e-mail. If they're blocking legitimate, business-related e-mails, who knows what else is getting lost.

If you're unfortunate enough to be stuck with AOL, let me recommend Yahoo!, Hotmail! or Gmail, so you're not wondering whether or not you're getting all of your e-mail. I've got quite a few Gmail invitations I can send out, so drop me a line at derek@1-800-bakery.com if you'd like one.

King Cake Alert

Another tasty image for you to ponder, our Genuine New Orleans King Cake. This is the real deal, baked fresh to order and shipped from Randazzo's Camelia City Bakery, complete with beads, doubloons, and a bag of gourmet coffee.

Want one? Want two? Place the orders now. Due to the high demand for these around Mardi Gras, as of this writing, we'll only be accepting orders until Noon Eastern, February 14. After that, no amount of pleading or bribery will enable me to secure a King Cake for you. They're running out of baking capacity on these, as they're hugely popular again this year. How popular? They're #5 on our Bestsellers list.

I don't know when we'll have them again--Randazzo's took a well-deserved month off after last year's Mardi Gras. I also can't guarantee that we'll have them until the 14th, as a spike in orders might make them unavailable before then. The important phrase here is, "as of this writing."

Remember that you can use our calendar and have your King Cake delivered on the 20th, you just won't be able to order them after next Wednesday. As of this writing.

Welcome, Veronica's Treats!

That interesting creation to the left is a Heart Puzzle Cookie from our newest partner bakery, Veronica's Treats of Middleboro, Massachusetts. It arrives unassembled with instructions on how to put it together to reveal it's hidden shape.

We've actually been working with the great staff at Veronica's since last autumn on our corporate orders, and we're very happy to launch them onto our retail site just in time for Valentine's Day. There's an exceptional level of creativity in the things they make, and they're as delicious as they are different. Along with the Puzzle Heart, we've also got chocolate-covered Heart Brownie Bites and my personal favorite, Brownie Roses, rose-shaped brownies dusted in red sugar. I'm going to ask that you take seconds out of your busy day and click that link to see them. You don't have to buy any, but you'll probably want to.

We've greatly expanded our Valentine's Day selection this year, and there's still a couple of exclusive products here at La Patisserie to come once we've got the finishing touches just right--look for them by this weekend. And since Valentine's Day has the good sense to fall on a Wednesday this year, second-day air delivery will be available on February 14th.

As always, though, I'll caution you to order ahead, as quantities are limited and items will sell out. Valentine's Day tends to be a very last-minute thing for a lot of people, but when you were falling in love with that special someone, did you wait until the last minute? Of course not. Nothing says, "I love you," quite like ordering ahead.