Inconvenient service and messy retail areas. People don’t have time to stand in line and wait for a number. The approach in a retail bakery today should be like someone’s coming to your home. Your shop is like your house: it needs to be clean, Internet friendly and offer a place to sit.

Think outside the box in designing your product line. Forty eight percent of consumers plan their meals as they shop, so offer bakery products with foods and condiments that complement one another. In-store bakeries have the advantage of customers shopping the rest of the supermarket, but retail bakeries can still offer their customers more than what they came in for. You might provide a complete meal or all the supplies with the cake for a celebration, any combination of items that makes your bakery a one-stop shop and provides value to customers.

Smaller portions have definitely taken over. P.F. Chang’s and other restaurants offer a selection of mini desserts, which are traditional desserts served in shot glasses. The presentation is attractive and customers can get small tastes of multiple desserts with less guilt. Also, infusions are big in restaurants today. Bakeries might try combining different flavors, such as infusing lemon or another citrus flavor into a blueberry product.