Why I am not Buying Into the Concept of Online Shops

I am one of the few people who are still yet to enrich online shops, and my experience today gives me more reasons why I would rather give business to someone with permanent, visible business premises, than one who has a virtual premise. So, my mother's birthday is coming up, and she had mentioned that she wanted to have white forest. Okay, it was a craving, so I thought I would hustle till I found a bakery that opened on short notice, and delivered as well. I ignored the one my friend had told me about yet we had tasted their cakes a while back in school. Those guys had amazing cakes but they were not taking any orders that day, and there was also something about not being able to deliver. So it was just my luck with these guys.

My option one bakery were also not taking orders, so I chose bakery number two. The pictures they had on Facebook of their cupcakes and cakes looked very nice. Almost like the ones on Cake Boss. So I knew I was making the right decision. I called the number there and lo and behold! They were taking orders. They said they could deliver to where I was and they took payment upon delivery. "Awesome!!!" I thought. 

I told them to deliver in town at 1.00pm, since that is the time I would be out from church, and I thought town was a rather central place. That is now when we asked where the person delivering is coming from. Kiambu. My word! Okay, we said that we shall meet them halfway at Oil Libya Plaza in Muthaiga. Ever heard of African timers? These guys made us wait an hour and a half. Then they had excuses from here to high heavens. Anyway, so this cake looked like an ordinary vanilla cake from the icing. I mean, a white forest cake has a certain appearance. But I took the cake since it was too late to get another one, and it was a Sunday, so getting another cake would be near impossible.

So... we cut the cake, and you guessed it! The cake is an ordinary vanilla cake with icing in between. The icing was more like BlueBand icing rather than the whipped cream that white forest cakes are known to have. Luckily, my cousins do not have such a huge preference for cake. As long as it can be eaten, they are good. My mum just had a small piece and that was that. She was utterly disappointed. I had a mind to go to that Facebook page and write the worst review in history, but I didn't. The thing is, I had read reviews for that bakery, and they were all nice. It was probably friends and family who, gun to their head would not have had an option to say anything bad even if they wanted. And the way that page had many likes! So that was a lesson learnt.  Last minute stuff is not the best, and cheap is always expensive. The bakery with the nice cakes were pricier, but me and my cost cutting techniques made a very bad call. 

That is not to say that you should not support online shops, just be very careful and do not do last minute shopping like I did. To make it up to her, I went to a bakery that sells cake slices, and bought my mum a slice of white velvet cake. At least this one never disappoints.