Yes, we're sorry, it's time to make some adjustments to our cake topper pricing! This has been quite a while coming, but is needed to keep our quality at the levels you have come to know and expect, and to make our business sustainable for the long term!
We will make these updates on March 19th, 2022.
We certainly don't want to adjust our prices, but unfortunately, to keep our quality high amongst all the market changes, something has to be adjusted so we can continue to sustainably supply a beautiful product with the speed and service you're used to from us! This is actually our first cake topper price adjustment since 2016 - we didn't even adjust prices when we registered for GST in January 2017. We've absorbed this as much as possible with efficiencies in production, but there is only so far we can go.
So let's break down the changes in full that we're making.
It seems like every other week we get an email from one of our suppliers about a price increase that's coming! Our raw materials - often acrylic - are increasing in price - and also the variation between the materials is increasing. For this reason, we're splitting cake toppers into two price brackets to better reflect the raw material costs.
The first bracket is called "basics". This covers most solid colours, and also includes Gold, Silver, and Rose gold mirror - our most popular colours! For a single colour cake topper, this bracket remains at a base rate of $40 as it's been for some time.
The second bracket is "specials". This includes speciality coloured mirrors, our glitter range, our wood range, and other special colours. The base rate for these is $50. This reflects the significant extra expense of these materials.
The short version is that for each order, there is a certain amount of set up time to get setup and push everything through the system. When an order contains more than one cake topper, there are efficiencies in preparing the artwork, making the cake toppers, and packing them, and we'd like to pass these on to you!
Previously, the cake decorator program took $5 off each cake topper - basically 12.5% off a $40 cake topper. So we're replacing this with a new tiered level that applies to everyone, without a code or signup.
So here are the levels:
The discount is automatically applied when you add cake toppers to the cart, and only applies to cake toppers ordered at the same time. These discounts only apply when ordering via the website; we won't be able to apply these discounts if you order in person or if we need to issue an invoice for payment, due to the overheads of applying these discounts at that time.
We love your random requests for cake toppers! Like the Bride, Groom, dogs, and pigs. Or to include your partner's favourite car in a cake topper. Or including all the favourite types of bicycles that they like. And hundreds of other unique requests we've received over the years!
But these requests can take some time to translate into a cake topper. If we work from our existing range of designs or make a custom text-only design, it takes us a short time to prepare the artwork for your cake topper - we've optimised our computer systems to make this a very quick process. But when we have a custom design where we need to find graphics, find a custom font, or trace an image, it takes a lot longer - often in the order of 10 times longer - to prepare the artwork for your cake topper.
So we may need to add an extra artwork fee to your order depending on your request! The best bet is to get in touch with us first to find out what will be involved in this. The fee varies depending on the time it takes for us to do the additional design; things like tracing your photos into silhouettes can take over an hour to complete. But here are some more concrete examples to help you understand!
How much is the charge likely to be? The minimum extra charge is $30, based on 30 minutes of extra design time. But we will give you a specific fixed quote before we work on the design. If we exceed the time required for that specific design, we'll stick to the quote that we provided, as sometimes it's hard to judge just how long something will take to complete. So you can be ensured that you won't be charged more for an agreed design.
As an addenda to this one - we keep all artwork on file, forever, so we have a large selection of cake topper designs that we can tap into! We don't have them all listed online due to the sheer volume of cake toppers and the work involved in listing them online separately. But ask, and we will do what we can!
Previously, we had free standard shipping on cake toppers. This worked on the fact that we could send cake toppers via untracked letter post for $3.30. Unfortunately, since the pandemic, letter post has become somewhat unreliable for large letters, and we had to replace a lot of cake toppers that went missing or were significantly delayed at our expense! (Please don't get us wrong; we know all postage providers are doing their best, but the sheer volumes of parcels and letters they are now handling has caused delays with low priority items like letter post). As letter post has no tracking, we can't find out what happened to them or where they are. For this reason we've actually been shipping all cake toppers with tracked shipping for some time at our expense, but we can't continue to bear this cost, unfortunately, especially as freight rates go up.
However, we do get special rates for shipping due to our shipping volumes, so we've limited the pricing as much as possible! So here are the new shipping rates:
We've introduced a range of non-customised designs, that cover off many of the basic celebrations that we see. You can now choose from these designs to create your own bulk pack, and save significantly on purchasing custom designs for each cake!
How do these work? Choose 5 or more of our designs (or multiples of the same ones), select the colour for the whole batch, and you'll get the entire batch from as low as $23 each depending on the colour. The exact pricing depends on the quantity of designs in the pack and the colour for the batch. Each cake topper still comes packed individually as it normally would, making it easy to split them up for different customers and giving the customers the ability to store and display them afterwards. Or hire them out to your customers with their cakes instead!
We've currently got a standard range based on two fonts; based on your feedback we'll expand the range with additional fonts and additional standard wordings.
To fit in the pricing, these designs can't be customised or resized; for any changes, they'll need to be ordered as a custom cake topper. But do get in touch as we may be able to help - especially early on as we establish the standard set of cake toppers - we're intending to be guided by your feedback!
Some of our inventive cake decorators figured out that we make wedding plate placecards. They have a minimum order of 8 names - but these could be single words instead. These don't come with stakes, but are suitable to place on the sides of cakes or gently on the top against other decorations. Working on the minimum quantity they are $5 each, but for example you can then add the wording "Delaney is One" to a cake for just $15, instead of the full custom cake topper base price of $40. If you plan ahead and get a few orders ready to go at the same time, you can customise a few cakes for much less than a standard cake topper. There is also a price break if you order more words at the same time.
You can read up on these and order them here!
Isn't that an excellent question? Yes, I thought so... we're naturally introverted people and don't like making a fuss or tooting our own horns. But sometimes we should be a little more vocal about what we can do, and this is one of those rare moments!
We do love what we do, and love making all these custom cake toppers just for you. And we love seeing your amazing cake creations when you post them, often dwarfing the work and appearance of the cake toppers - but that's just the point!
We hope you'll understand these adjustments to our pricing, to keep our quality and service at the levels you've come to know and expect from us.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out and discuss!
"Highly recommend this amazing business! I have ordered multiple times with them and they never disappoint. Absolutely amazing."
