Custom cake orders often start in Instagram DMs. A customer sends a photo, asks about a date, asks about price, and then goes quiet for two days. Meanwhile someone else asks for the same Saturday. By Friday night, you are scrolling back through messages to check who actually confirmed. A cake order page on your own shop fixes most of that. Customers pick a cake, a size, a pickup time, and the message for the cake, and they pay when they order. Here is how an Airdrie bakery or home baker can set one up. ## How do people in Airdrie look for cakes? They search the town name. In our own research on October 26, 2026, "airdrie bakery" and "bakery airdrie" each got about 1,000 Google Canada searches a month. For comparison, "okotoks bakery" got about 720. Many of the bakeries those people find don't have a place to order. In our own research on October 26, 2026, we also looked at the top 20 bakery results on Google Maps for Airdrie, and found 5 with no website and 3 more that linked only to social media. Several look like home bakers. So when someone finds you and wants a cake, the next step is often a DM. A simple order page gives them a better next step. ## What goes wrong with orders in DMs? - Details are spread across a long thread, so it's easy to miss the date, the size, or the name on the cake. - Two people can ask for the same day, and nothing stops you from saying yes twice. - People ask, then disappear, and you hold a day for someone who never pays. - Payment comes later, by a separate transfer, and you have to match it up. - You answer the same questions about sizes and prices again and again. ## How does a cake order page work? The baker below is a fictional example. It is not a OneShopFront customer, and the details are made up to show the setup. Picture a home baker in an Airdrie neighbourhood who makes birthday and celebration cakes. Most orders come through Instagram. On busy weeks, she spends more time answering messages than decorating. First, she adds her cakes as products. "Vanilla celebration cake" and "Chocolate celebration cake" are separate products. Each one has three variants: a 6-inch cake, an 8-inch cake, and a two-tier cake. Each variant has its own price and its own stock, so one size can sell out while the others stay open. She also sells a build-your-own box of 6 cupcakes, where the customer picks the flavours, with birthday candles as a paid add-on. Stock goes down for each cupcake flavour picked for the box, and a flavour that is out of stock can't be picked. Second, she writes the product page in plain words. What each size serves. What decoration is included. Which allergens are in her kitchen. How to send a design photo: after ordering, the customer sends it by email or message, with the order number from the confirmation email. Third, she sets up the cake details on each cake's Personalization tab. A required field asks for the name to write on the cake, so a cake can't go in the cart without it. A second field takes a custom message, with an extra fee of $5. The cake page shows the fee as +$5.00 next to the field. The fields apply to every size of that cake. At checkout, the customer can also fill in the order note, for example with the party colours. The note can be up to 500 characters, and it is on by default. The cake details and the note show on the order confirmation, on her order, on the packing slip, and in emails. Fourth, she sets a lead time for each product on its Inventory tab. Each cake needs seven days of notice, so nobody can order a cake for tomorrow. The cupcake box needs two days, set on the box's own Inventory tab. Customers see "Needs 2 days notice" on the box page and in the cart. If a customer puts a cake and a cupcake box in one cart, checkout offers only pickup dates that give her seven days, the longest notice in the cart, and it says which item sets the earliest date. Her daily order cutoff still applies too, and checkout uses whichever rule is strictest. She lets customers choose a date up to 60 days ahead, so birthday planners can book early. Fifth, she sets [pickup with time slots](https://oneshopfront.com/pickup) on Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings. When a weekend fills up, she sets a date limit of 0 on those pickup slots for that date. Nobody can choose a time she can't bake for. Sixth, she charges the full price at checkout. Her page says what happens if a customer cancels, and how much notice she needs for a refund. If a refund is due, she handles it from the order. On a Tuesday in November, a customer finds her through a Google search, picks the chocolate cake in the 8-inch size, types the name for the cake, adds a custom message, chooses a 10 AM pickup on a Saturday two weeks later, and pays. The customer gets an order confirmation email with the order number, the cake details, and the pickup details, then sends a photo of the party theme with that number. On Friday, the baker decorates from the packing slip, which shows the name and the message. On Saturday morning, she marks the order ready for pickup, and the customer gets an email with the pickup place, time window, and store hours. Some customers pay by Interac e-Transfer. They upload proof of their payment at checkout, and the order waits until the baker checks it and confirms it. She confirms those payments before she starts baking. ## What should your cake page say? - A clear photo of each size, and how many people it serves. - The price for each size, shown up front. - What decoration is included, and what is not. - How much notice you need. - Your pickup place and days. - What to type in the name and message fields, and what a custom message costs. - How to send a design photo after ordering. - Your cancellation and refund policy. - Allergens in your kitchen. If you bake from home, check your local rules for home food businesses before you sell online. If you want to deliver cakes in town too, our post on [Airdrie food delivery](https://oneshopfront.com/blog/airdrie-food-delivery-own-driver-or-courier) covers your delivery choices. If some customers live outside your area, our [post on delivery areas and pickup](https://oneshopfront.com/blog/okotoks-delivery-area-pickup-shipping) shows how to plan for them. ## Where does OneShopFront fit? OneShopFront gives a small bakery or home baker these tools: - Your own checkout on your own storefront - Product variants, each with its own price and stock - Personalization fields, which you can make required or give an extra fee, and add-on choices with their own prices - An order note of up to 500 characters at checkout - Build-your-own boxes, with stock tracked for each item inside - [Pickup with time slots](https://oneshopfront.com/pickup), and a "ready for pickup" email to the customer - A minimum lead time and a daily order cutoff for pickup and local delivery - A lead time for each product, so customers can only pick pickup or local delivery dates that give you enough notice - An order confirmation email with the items, cake details, totals, and pickup details - [Local delivery](https://oneshopfront.com/local-delivery) with a date and time slot - Card payments through Stripe or Helcim, or Interac e-Transfer (Canada only, not a card payment), where the buyer uploads proof of payment and you confirm it Starter is $20 CAD a month, and Growth is $50 CAD a month. A platform fee, currently 1% per sale, applies to the merchandise subtotal after discounts, plus your payment processor's fee. For Stripe and Helcim payments, the platform fee is taken at checkout. For Interac e-Transfer orders, it is added to your monthly invoice. No card needed to sign up. When you pick Starter or Growth, you get a 7-day free trial before billing starts. ## What can you do this week? 1. List your cake sizes and set a price for each one. 2. Decide how much notice each cake needs. 3. Decide what customers type for each cake, and what you charge for a custom message. 4. Pick your pickup days and times. 5. Write your cancellation policy in two or three sentences. 6. Put your order page link in your Instagram bio and your Google Business Profile. 7. To set up a cake order page on your own storefront, [register for OneShopFront](https://oneshopfront.com/register). Sources: Google Canada monthly search volumes from Serpstat, and the top 20 Google Maps bakery results for Airdrie, both from our own research on October 26, 2026.