I've taken the plunge

[victoria]

Well, I've finally taken the plunge and decided to advertise...have purchased a domain name and am in the process of constructing my website (www.victorias-sponge.co.uk).

I've contacted environmental health and will contact the inland revenue once I'm up and running. I'm not publishing the website until I've got the all clear from environmental health.

Hopefully, I will then get some orders that aren't just family and can start charging proper prices and hopefully making some money (although looking back at some of the other posts in this section, that seems unlikely...)

[rach]

lol.....well done......i charge a minimum of £45 for a cake and it depends wot it is to how much i charge bubt i still dont seem to make much once you work it all out but better than nothing...

[victoria]

well, I'm a quantity surveyor by trade and it was my job to make sure that projects made money, so hopefully I can use some of my previous skills in this new venture...it would be a particularly poor show if I don't!

[rach]

defff.....good luck when you make mega bucks can you give us some advice please

[victoria]

hmmm...not holding my breath

[dkcrooby]

Oh you'll be really surprised!! I started off my advertising locally and then by putting an ad in the yellow pages/yell.com. yell.com is excellent by the way for attracting new business. I've been making £150 profit for quite a few months and then in my busiest month, I would have made over £300 profit if I hadn't bought better quality equipment. Admittedly I had 3 wedding cakes that month but if you can do it full time, you'll definitely make money. I could only make 2 a week at the most because I look after the children during the day so only really did them in the evenings and on weekends.

My worst part about the cakes was trying to charge the right prices. But you're looking for the people who are quite happy to spend £45 on a children's cake, not someone who wants a cake for the same price as you can buy one from Tesco. I'm surprised at how much some people are actually willing to pay.

So good luck! I'm sure you'll get loads of orders.

[rach]

I also find with myself I take on maybe one ot two cakes a week cos I dont really want to do anymore cos I spend so long on them and I do get abit sick of cakes..lol......

[victoria]

I think I will have to do a couple of dummy wedding cakes as I am in the middle of my first one, so not much to show...I did a sample cake at the weekend as a bit of a practice (just the one tier) and we are still munching our way through it - don't know how much more cake i can eat...

i too look after my daughter during the day, who is a very demanding little girl and wants playing with all the time, so its nights and weekends for me too

[victoria]

Well, I got an information pack through the post today from the environmental health and to be honest, its all a bit scary...thought it would just be a quick inspection and bob's your uncle, but apparently I've got to do a load of risk assessments, cleaning logs, and food delivery and storage logs...i buy most of my stuff from Asda!!!

[rach]

I would recheck its sounds like they have given you details for a larger up and running business from home..if you are only doing a few hours and say that you are even if it sometimes may be abit more...then they just come round have a chat ...inspect the kitchen ask a few easy questions on standards and hyiene ..cross contamintion etc and thats it..well thats wot he did for mine..

really nice and helpful......if you go bigger then all of that normally applies..but I did do mine a few years ago ..it might have changed..

let us know anyway

[victoria]

I have spoken to the environmental health bloke and he was really helpful, he's going to come round and help me sort out all the procedures you have to have in place (and written down), so I've now published the website, which looks great in internet explorer browser, but not so good in firefox...no idea why...anyway, feel free to have a browse its www.victorias-sponge.co.uk

[rach]

looks great....wot pack did you use for your website..I have just bought serif 10 to do a new one cos its suppose to be really easy to use...obviously they hadnt come across me when they said that..lol

[victoria]

I used microsoft frontpage, mainly because it was already on my computer as part of the office package and secondly because you don't need to know how to use code, you just set it out as you would a word document and it codes it all for you. The only problem with that is some web hosting sites don't support frontpage so I have had to find one that does and have maybe paid a bit more than I could have done if I could have been bothered to learn how to code. Also, with it being a microsoft product, it works best when viewed with internet explorer browser, but my brother (who is a computer geek) tells me that many people now use other browsers such as firefox and opera...I've checked what it looks like in firefox and it has gridlines showing between the photos and I don't know how to get rid of this...

[Nauseen]

hello all, Sorry making guest appearance, I am in france; Victoria, Your site looks good, although i would sugest that you downsize the pics; I am viewing your gallery using a dsl broadband and it take too long to load, if one can't view the pics quick enough, one will not stay to look at other pics. You can use any picture programe to reduce the size b4 adding them on the frontpage.
Good luck with the site!
Nauseen

[victoria]

thanks Nauseen, it took a while, but pics now smaller and faster...they didn't take long at all with my broadband connrection, but there are different speeds, so maybe mine is a faster one