How Pinkmans Focus on Quality to Stand Out in The Marketplace

Not your typical bakery, Steven and the team at Pinkmans have been producing quality baked goods in their own unique style for four years.

Having won awards for their delicious bread, pastries and pizzas, Pinkmans has strived to stand out from the crowd by putting quality first. 

Steven and the team took the time to share some of their thoughts on running a successful store and how it’s evolved over the years.

What inspired you to start Pinkmans?

I wanted to put a working bakery on the high street. Normally the bakers and the customers have next to no contact and so the customers don’t see the craft of the bakers and the bakers don’t see the appreciation of the customer for their craft. That energy I thought would make Pinkmans a place to come to. 

What’s unique about your business? Why do your customers keep coming back to you?

I don’t think there is anything unique about our business – but we know we need to stand out to compete in the market. 

In our industry, you either stand out by having a better price, better availability or better quality – you need to have an advantage on at least one of those to have a defined offer.  

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We can’t compete on price with the bigger operators or those making an inferior product or with availability with the cafés buying produce in. So, we choose quality and have a relentless focus on it. 

Quality in the food and drink itself, service journey, packaging, the bakery shop and café. All of these are points of the customer experience  – we have to keep people coming back for the good stuff!

What do you think are the key reasons for the success of Pinkmans and would you do anything differently if you were starting it today?

We know what we are – a modern bakery – and what that means for how we act. Starting again today I would have just wanted more initial funds as we opened later than planned, spent more than budgeted and started with lower sales than forecast. All of that strained the business plan from the start

What were some challenges you encountered when starting you didn’t anticipate? 

We had a much slower start in trading numbers than envisaged – that was a huge challenge that took a lot of energy, patience and belief to turn around.

What’s it like running your business? What does a typical day look like? 

You are always running the business, even on days off, so it’s a mindset thing to deal with that. With a bakery, any problem tends to occur early when the baking starts so a typical day starts between 5 and 6 am.

You use WooCommerce Delivery Slots for your store, how has it helped you and your store?

Using WooCommerce Delivery Slots means we don’t overload the production or delivery so our fulfilment is consistent and not stressed – and we deliver to the customer right every time.

What other tools or software do you use to make running your store a little easier? 

We use recipe and purchasing software to help manage our food costs, and scheduling and HR software for managing our labour costs and payroll.

If you could give one piece of advice to new and emerging store owners, what would it be?

Make sure you know what your offer is about, why it’s going to attract customers (price, quality, availability) and what your plan is to let the customers know about you.

Where to find Pinkmans

Liked this interview and want to follow Pinkmans? You can find them here:

Website: https://pinkmans.co.uk/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/pinkmansbakery

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pinkmansbakery/