As our world shifts more and more to a digital platform and digital social identity, the idea of the Internet and its increasing power is more evident than it ever was before. Let’s be honest, the internet has grown so much from its dial-up days and Instant Messaging on AOL. Before now, you would probably just use the internet to reconnect with an old friend from elementary school who’s now halfway across the world, but what if I told you, it would be possible to run a multimillion-dollar business right from the comfort of your own home (with the help of the internet, of course!)? 

 When it comes to the amazing age of the world wide web, the internet has the amazing capabilities to broaden your horizons and transport your brand! This has made the possibilities endless and has given business owners a new way to captivate and enlarge their customer base. It would behoove any company to start looking for more ways to grow and or increase their internet or social media presence because now a small New York-based brand can be accessible to a potential customer located in Moscow! 

   In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic sent shock waves across the world and it caused many physical stores to shut down business permanently due to many “stay at home” restrictions. Many businesses started to shift their focus to their internet presence, but some still didn’t see that this would be the game-changer needed to elevate their brand to the next level. 

 MyCookieDealer started with a married couple where the husband was a bodybuilder and the wife baked him a half-pound of cookies on his cheat days. The husband would parade his cheat day cookies on his Instagram and suddenly fans of his started to request to buy them. Initially, it was just sending money to the wife via Venmo, but then as the orders grew, they set up an online store, and their success from there pretty much skyrocketed! MyCookieDealer operates on specific ‘drop days’ where you have a limited selection of their made to order goods only available during certain day/times of the week, customers have a time frame to order, and once the time frame closes the cookies are then made to order and shipped out to the respective buyers. 

 

 

Despite MyCookieDealer becoming an accidental multi-million-dollar company, the idea of this bakery moving to strictly digital and having ‘drop days’ is the perfect example of the evolution of word of mouth that now translates to likes, retweets, reposts, and sharing. Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) broke down the best way of seeing how these online bakeries are cutting back on extra expenses that would come from a physical bakery shop. He brings up that a physical bakery shop would be considered ‘Old World’ and the new online bakery shops, or “Instagram Bakeries” are the ‘New World.’

The way Puri breaks down the Old-World bakery vs the New World bakery, the New World bakery has way more resources and doesn’t have to face some of the more difficult challenges of starting a business. For example, some of the questions Puri posed that an Old-World bakery might face 

“How can I get shelf space?”

“What is the best location for my business?”

“How do I build my customer base?”

“Wholesale price and how do I determine that?”

Puri brought in the fact that some bakeries would have to either rent or buy a commercial property to house the products. The Old-World bakery would be limited geographically but would have the instant gratification of a customer that comes right in and wants to purchase a cookie. The New-World bakery, despite not having the instant gratification of the purchased cookie the actual scarcity of the cookie adds more value and popularity to the bakery attracting even more customers!

MyCookieDealer isn’t the only one finding out this sweet new hack to reeling in more customers worldwide. 1-900-ICE CREAM and Allie’s Banana Bread are just some of the few shops that have also turned their stores into multimillion-dollar digital stores that now incorporated the infamous ‘drop days’. They keep their customers informed about their drops by sending out SMS Alerts, offer national shipping and everything is made to order so the companies don’t have to worry about food waste due to being out too long.  Then of course add in the images of all of their baked goods proudly welcoming to their Instagram really makes you want to take a bit out of your screen!

Building your brand’s online presence could be the exact thing holding you back from elevating your brand to the next level. It can seem challenging at first, but these Instagram Bakeries can prove to you that having a digital platform shifted the entire way that these bakeries were not only seen but also accessed. So what’s stopping you from making this sweet transition to the new digital life? 

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