Why retail bakers are switching to automated orders for their stores
An increasingly key reason retail bakeries choose Cybake to manage their operations is the software’s ability to automate the orders from their stores.
The use of Cybake’s sales-based shop ordering module generally increases turnover per store by at least 4% while cutting waste by around 20%. This is because the automated orders forecast by Cybake are far more accurate than those by the shop managers who are usually responsible for this task.
This may seem like a bold statement, but if you run a chain of retail outlets, you know your store managers. They are busy people working in a fast-moving environment who are subject to human perceptions of consumer behaviour.
As a very basic example, plain muffin sales go up because lemon muffins sold out early or not enough were delivered. Some customers purchase the plain type as a second preference. Does your shop manager up the next day’s order of plain muffins? Or do they do the right thing and increase the order for lemon muffins?
Instead of relying on human guesswork of this nature for every one of your products, Cybake analyzes historical sales data from your POS systems and/or calculated sales figures for each of them. It then crunches your numbers and forecasts what your bakery needs to produce for each of your stores.
Standing orders
This takes away the need for store managers to spend time judging sales and adjusting standing orders. And, back at head office, there is no longer a need to deploy staff to take and process orders from your stores manually.
Cybake’s sales-based shop ordering module tells head office how each shop is progressing as well as its waste and shrinkage data. Head office then monitors orders and outcomes to refine Cybake’s algorithms on each of your product lines even further.
Now, this all may sound a bit like rocket science and, yes, Cybake uses modern-day machine learning to make its forecasts. But the real beauty of automating this particular task is that all the data that is needed is already right there in your POS systems. It is just a question of unlocking it properly.
Retail craft bakers operate in a super-competitive market in which freshness and availability are essential. If a customer has to weigh up whether to buy a plain muffin because their favourite lemon type is unavailable, they are just as likely to walk out of the door and buy an item from the store up the street instead.
The ability to prevent this scenario, and to get the right goods in the right outlets at the right times, is just one example of how data-based efficiency has become a critical process in the baking business. With rising input and staffing costs, making decisions based on data, not guesswork, is now essential.
In the background, you can see Cybake’s automated orders. Users can click on an item and see how Cybake calculated its forecast.
Head office can analyse the progress of each product in each shop adjust its ordering rules.
A Cybake business intelligence screen showing a comparison of sales recorded through EPOS systems and sales calculated via stock transactions.
P.S. Join the Retail Bakers of America, Cybake founder Jane Tyler and Cybake USA business representative Luke Karl for a special webcast, “Baking Technology: Data Driven Production Planning and Waste Reduction” on March 20, 2023 at 2pm CDT.
In this online session, Jane and Luke will show you how you can use technology to forecast what to produce based on previous sales data, drive your best-selling products, and reduce waste. Pre-registration is required, and the webinar is also open to non-RBA members.
Oprah Davidson is Cybake's ambassador for Northern America. She is a pro baker whose CV includes New York’s Milk Bar chain; the Institute of Culinary Education, New York; and product development for major U.S. bakery brands.
