The Start of Something Sweet: How Caroline’s Cakes Grew
“There really was a Caroline.”
That’s how Richard Reutter, president of Caroline’s Cakes, started our call. More importantly, though, Richard is also Caroline’s son.
“She served the first caramel cake at my christening in 1982 and word-of-mouth just took over from there.”
Caroline was well aware of the impact good food can have. She grew up in South Carolina, where every person had an iconic dish they’d tote to church or parties or local events. When her caramel cake made its debut and immediately stoked requests from friends and family again and again, she knew exactly what to do next.
Turning her infamous cake into a business was a no-brainer. After all, her own father was an entrepreneur and that apple did not fall far from the tree.
Each cake required hours of time to bake up with her traditional burnt sugar caramel — a true labor of love. She perfected the recipe and processes to the point where she could make eight cakes a day. She’d set them out on the front porch where happy customers could slip their cash into a red metal tin and make off with their coveted treat.
For 18 years, Caroline ran her cake business like this: small-batch Southern desserts, teeming with tradition, picked up and paid for entirely using the honor system. Until one day, she got a call.
On the precipice of something delicious.
A business in Florida wanted to give the perfect gift to its team. It placed an order for 2,000 cakes.
Without hesitation, Caroline agreed. Soon after, an entire commercial kitchen was built in her basement, and she got to baking. It’s been a whirlwind of growth and innovation ever since.
The company launched online shortly after that first massive order (a relatively early adopter of a dot com), perfected the logistics of shipping cakes across the country, and now boasts a lineup of 30 signature flavors and savory delights all while retaining its core mission to simply “eat cake and be happy.”
Today, the demand for a true Southern cake is growing. Long-time customers want the dessert that’s become tradition. Younger shoppers crave the cake their parents or grandparents served. And businesses are flocking to send memorable gifts to teammates and clients.
Despite changing trends and mounting appetites, Richard has taken the baton and is innovating ahead while honoring tradition, just like his mom.
The Problem: Placing Gift Orders Wasn’t Fun for Anyone
The biggest buyers of these sweet Southern desserts are those who’ve integrated Caroline’s into their own celebrations and traditions, “but most heavily during the holidays,” adds Richard.
“On the corporate side, we hear from people in every possible position at a company. Many of them come to us because they’ve had an experience with Caroline’s Cakes prior to considering corporate gifting, and they’re eager to share that kind of experience with others.”
Today, gifting makes up the majority of business, about 90%. “We see a heavy concentration of gifts sent from financial offices, real estate firms, and attorneys,” says Richard, “and people are buying for anyone. Clients, family, friends — everybody!”
While major Q4 holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s Eve mark peak gifting season for Caroline’s Cakes, the fact is that gifting is a year-round need. Birthdays, housewarming parties, keeping in touch with faraway friends, and more are all recurring reasons people gift these treasured cakes.
Wanting to gift is easy. Sending a gift, well, not so much.
The issue? Placing and processing gift orders was a pain, each requiring the same hands-on process. In the early days, a team member would answer the phone, pick up a pencil, and write down the details for every cake, recipient, and payment on a pad of paper.
This highly manual process is prone to order entry issues and makes it tricky to track down customer details in a timely fashion. “It often pulls us away from other tasks at the same time,” laments Richard.
And even though it’s not unusual for a long-time customer to call Caroline’s Cakes and shoot the breeze with a real person (after placing an order, of course), not everybody wants to pick up the phone or endure any friction, for that matter, in the gift-ordering process.
“In the past year, we’ve dramatically improved and redesigned our website to make the browsing and ordering process much easier and more approachable for our customers. The process of buying a cake should be enjoyable, not time-consuming.”
It became apparent that the gift-ordering experience stood out like a sore thumb from the rest of the customer journey.
“We lacked a comprehensive online platform for corporate customers to consider, place, view, and manage their orders at any time,” says Richard. For a company that has always, always prioritized the customer and prides itself on devout service, making a gifting process that fit the needs of every person became a priority.
It was finally time to find a solution not just for the sake of customer happiness but also for the sake of a team hungry to grow.
The Solution: The Hunt for a Gifting Platform Begins
Until recently, the process for ordering gifts was the same for everyone, regardless of their preferred way to shop. And for a brand that puts customer joy above all else, that harsh reality just didn’t cut it anymore. “We went looking for something better,” recalls Richard. “We knew there had to be something else that could help.”
At first, the team considered a custom solution, but end-user clunkiness as well as the sheer amount of time and resources to develop and maintain something like that made it a nonviable path.
Then they found a tool they thought was really going to be the solution. “When we did find a potential solution for multiple shipping in a more efficient manner, it worked … but not without its issues.” After noticing that some gifts weren’t being properly transferred into Shopify, Richard pulled the plug.
“There were issues that could have been detrimental to our business, our reputation, and we just couldn’t afford to continue on with a tool that wasn’t near-perfect.”
Shortly after, as fate would have it, Richard happened to chat with a colleague in the mail-order food biz and Zest came up in the conversation. “The biggest selling point for Zest was just the fact that it worked, it did what it promised.”
Alex, Zest’s co-founder and CEO, was the first to field Richard’s calls, “and he took a lot of time to answer each and every question,” recalls Richard. “Not only was it clear that Zest worked well, but it was obvious that we could even expand our offerings based on all the tool is capable of.”
After a quick and stress-free implementation, Caroline’s Cakes had innovated once again and was poised to scale its corporate gifting channel even further.
The Results: Caroline’s Cakes Sells More Gifts With Confidence After Teaming With Zest
Setting up a dedicated gifting storefront was easier than expected, which is exactly what Caroline’s Cakes needed. It was the third quarter of 2024 and peak gift-buying season was right around the corner — a problem-free platform was critical.
The team at Caroline’s Cakes instantly leaned into Zest’s storefront capabilities. To ensure their gift-hunting shoppers could find exactly what they were craving and have gifts delivered exactly how they wanted, Caroline’s created several unique gifting storefronts.
In lieu of one main gift storefront fielding every gift, the team set up six separate storefronts. Shoppers could now go down designated self-service paths for gifting cakes, cake bites, or savory treats to multiple addresses or sending gifts in bulk to a single address. Presenting these storefronts in a clear, user-friendly fashion erased any confusion for shoppers about where they should go to get the exact gift they wanted.
“Each individual experience needs to be enjoyed,” says Richard, “and the customer experience needs to be considered through every part of the journey.” Leveraging Zest’s ability to create multiple storefronts for public or private gift shopping ensured that the team at Caroline’s really could create the best CX in every instance.
Of course, customers can still get in touch with a real person at Caroline’s to place an order and chat, but these self-service gifting journeys are the perfect frictionless counterparts to more hands-on relationships.
People love Caroline’s — the cake and the experience.
When asked how his customers have responded to the new gifting experience, Richard reports that “Many customers are having an easier time placing bulk gift orders, and many may not even be thinking about it when they place an order through these storefronts.” It was important to the team to have a tool that wasn’t jarring, overwhelming, clunky, or confusing to use, so seeing customers effortlessly sending 50 cakes in 5 minutes without pause “is exactly what we wanted.”
Features that make the ordering process so easy are the ability for customers to upload a full sheet of recipients as well as populate gift messages across entire orders. “It gives our customers confidence, and it makes bigger customers inclined to repeat the process and come back to gift again.”
“People can come in and edit orders, add to orders, and place orders quickly, then consolidate everything at the end so it’s really easy to share with their team members and bosses,” says Richard. “It’s a super easy process, that’s the feedback we heard the most from users.”
And with a self-service gifting platform fielding gift orders and delighting customers, the team at Caroline’s Cakes no longer faced the bottlenecks that are often baked into a fully manual process. “Zest freed up our customer service team, and we could pursue more leads, engage more gifters, and do more tasks in-house.”
Looking ahead, Richard and his team plan to dive deeper into Zest’s Concierge feature, which was rolled out just before the 2024 holidays. “We think it could be a really valuable tool for continuing to tighten up processes for corporate customers and has a lot of benefit for our overall customer service.”
As for Caroline’s Cakes’ inaugural holiday season with Zest, Richard took a moment to reflect. “I’m really proud of this partnership. It improved the whole fulfillment and order-taking process, but I also love how our values align, how we both take care of people.”
And in the year ahead, Richard looks forward to growing on the platform, utilizing new features, and “continuing being an ‘Eat cake, be happy’ person and company.”
Truly, what could be better than that?
Preserving the Tradition of Good Food and Good Experiences
It’s not uncommon to hear people mourn the human relationships they feel technology is replacing today. Caroline’s Cakes, however, is proof that, when done right, tech can actually foster new relationships and nurture existing ones.
With Zest as a partner, the team can better serve every customer that comes their way. Whether that’s a shopper looking to send a bunch of gifts in just a couple minutes without any fuss, or someone who wants to pick up the phone and have a full-fledged conversation, they’re now empowered to help everyone in the best way possible.
“Each and every time I’m lucky enough to hear from one of our amazing customers about how much they love the cake, how it reminds them of the cake their parents and grandparents used to make, or an experience they may have had with Caroline, it reminds me of how special this business is. Those moments set us apart and remind us how lucky we are to get to bake these cakes and ship them across the country.”
In the end, the goal is to help more people experience the joy of good food, good company, and good memories. Zest is honored to play a small part in this journey and getting more cake to more happy people.
