Industries · Food & beverage
Pre-orders, custom cakes, and pickup scheduling for bakeries.
Customers pre-order tomorrow's sourdough on Friday night. A birthday cake order with the message "Happy 30th, Sarah" comes in ready-to-bake — name spelled correctly, pickup time confirmed, payment cleared. WhatsMenu runs the order-taking side of a bakery so you can focus on the bake.
Where a bakery's order flow gets messy
Five frictions every bakery hits — and what they cost when handled by paper.
Custom cake orders with messages, names, and decorations
"Happy birthday Aiko" gets misspelled. The flower colour is mauve, not pink. The customer wanted gluten-free; you didn't catch it. Without structured fields, every cake order is a back-and-forth chat that takes hours and still risks getting wrong.
Small-batch items that sell out by mid-morning
You make 24 sourdough loaves Friday morning. By 10am they're gone. Customers walk in at 11am expecting one based on your Instagram from yesterday. They leave annoyed.
Pickup windows nobody coordinates
Three customers all want pickup at 5pm Friday. You can't batch-bake 30 cakes for one slot. But the orders all arrived as text messages with no structure — you had to read each one and reply manually.
Gift bundles that need to feel special
Christmas hampers, hari raya boxes, valentine's gift sets — multiple items wrapped together at a fixed price. Each requires a setup; running them through individual SKUs is messy.
Allergen disclosure that's legally important
Nut-free, gluten-free, eggless, vegan — customers ask before ordering. Without structured allergen flags, your team is replying to messages all day with the same questions.
How WhatsMenu fits a bakery
Each friction maps to a feature.
Custom item fields capture messages, names, decorations, dietary needs
Add fields per cake: recipient name, occasion, message text, flower colour, dietary needs, pickup date and time. Customer fills them at checkout. Order arrives structured — no more "what did they say in the chat?"
Learn more →Daily limit caps small-batch bakes
Cap total Friday orders at, say, 80, or total items at 150 — Daily Limit gives you per-weekday and date-specific overrides at the company level. Once the cap fills, the storefront stops accepting orders for that fulfilment date. For caps on a specific bake (24 sourdough loaves, 5 birthday cakes), use Stock Management on those items with the qty reset each morning.
Learn more →Scheduled availability defines pickup windows
Pickup slots: 10am, noon, 3pm, 5pm. Cap each at how many cakes you can hand out in 15 minutes. Customers self-select. No more "everyone at 5pm" chaos.
Learn more →Bundles for gift sets at a fixed price
Christmas hamper = any 3 items from a "Hampers" category at RM 120. Group the components into one category, set the bundle rule once; customers add the items they want and the cart drops to the flat hamper price automatically. Stock tracks per-component as usual.
Learn more →Allergen disclosure on every product page
Use the Markdown product description to list allergens (nuts, gluten, eggs, dairy) on each cake. Customers see it on the storefront before they add to cart. No more allergen questions filling your inbox.
How a bakery uses WhatsMenu through the week
Tuesday a customer pre-orders a Friday birthday cake — fills in recipient name, message ("Happy 30th, Sarah"), flower colour (cream), pickup at 5pm Friday. The order arrives in the dashboard with everything structured; no clarifying chat needed. Wednesday is Nov 15: you flip the Christmas Hampers category from hidden to active — 18 hampers sell that night. Thursday afternoon Friday's sourdough hits its 24-loaf qty cap — the item shows "sold out", no overpromising. Friday morning the kitchen prints the day's orders by pickup slot — 10am, noon, 3pm, 5pm — each cake with its own structured detail card. Sarah's 30th birthday cake comes out perfect because nobody had to interpret a chat message.
- Tuesday: customer pre-orders a Friday cake. Custom Item Fields capture recipient name, message ("Happy 30th, Sarah"), flower colour (cream), pickup at 5pm Friday — all structured at checkout, no clarifying chat needed.
- Wednesday: Christmas Hampers go live. You flip the Hampers category from hidden to active in one toggle. Eighteen hampers sell that night — Bundles handles the flat-price logic so the cart auto-drops when customers pick the right number of components.
- Thursday: Friday's sourdough hits its qty cap. Stock Management caps Friday sourdough at 24 loaves. Once the count hits zero the item shows "sold out" automatically — no overpromising in DMs, no "we ran out" message in WhatsApp Friday morning.
- Friday morning: kitchen prints orders by pickup slot. Scheduled Availability had distributed orders across 10am, noon, 3pm, 5pm slots all week. The kitchen prints each slot's tickets together — staggered prep, no 5pm crush.
- Each cake prints with its full detail card. Order Print renders the recipient name, message, decoration notes, dietary requirements right on the kitchen ticket. No flipping back to the dashboard, no "what did they say in the chat?"
- 5pm Friday: Sarah's cake leaves correct. Cream flowers, "Happy 30th, Sarah" on the topper. Nobody had to interpret a chat message — the order was structured Tuesday and stayed structured all the way to handover.
WhatsMenu vs GrabFood / Foodpanda for bakeries
Marketplaces work for impulse delivery; they don't handle pre-orders, custom cake fields, hampers, or pickup slots — which is most of a bakery's real work. Side-by-side on what bakery operations actually need.
| What you get | Marketplaces (GrabFood, Foodpanda) | WhatsMenu |
|---|---|---|
| Per-order commission | 25–30% on every delivery — including the ones that came back from Instagram or your own Insta DMs. | None. Flat monthly subscription, your gateway's fee only (~2.9%). |
| Custom cake fields (name, message, colour, dietary) | Not supported. Customers DM you separately to add details. | Custom Item Fields — recipient name, message, flower colour, dietary needs, pickup date — all captured at checkout, structured. |
| Pre-orders for future dates | Same-day only. Customers can't book a Friday cake on Tuesday. | Time slots + pickup-date capture; the cake auto-counts against Friday's daily limit, not Tuesday's. |
| Pickup slot management | Not native. Crowd at 5pm regardless. | Per-slot caps via Scheduled Availability. Customers self-select 10am, noon, 3pm, 5pm — once a slot fills it disappears. |
| Daily caps on small-batch bakes | No native cap. You manually toggle items off when they sell out. | Daily Limit (whole-day caps) + Stock Management (per-item qty refreshed each morning). |
| Gift hampers / bundles | Not supported as a structured product. | Bundles — group items into a category, customer picks any 3, cart drops to the flat hamper price automatically. |
| Best when | Same-day impulse delivery to nearby customers. | Pre-order cake business, weekend bakes, hamper season, dietary customers. |
Many bakeries earn 70%+ of revenue from pre-orders, custom cakes, and hampers — none of which the marketplaces handle natively. Use the marketplaces for impulse delivery; run pre-orders and customs through your own WhatsMenu storefront.
Recommended setup
Modes to enable
Features to enable
Frequently asked questions
Can customers add a personalized message to a cake order on WhatsMenu?
Yes. Custom Item Fields lets you define per-cake fields: recipient name, message text, occasion, flower colour, dietary needs. Customer fills them at checkout. Each order arrives structured in the dashboard.
Can I cap small-batch items so they don't oversell?
Yes. Daily Limit caps total orders and total items per day at the company level, with per-weekday and per-date overrides — once a cap is hit the storefront stops accepting orders for that fulfilment date. For caps on a specific bake (e.g. 24 sourdough loaves on Fridays), use Stock Management on that item with qty reset each morning; the item shows "sold out" at zero.
How do pickup time slots work?
Configure pickup slots in Scheduled Availability (e.g. 10am, noon, 3pm, 5pm). Cap each slot at the number of orders you can hand out in 15 minutes. Customers pick a slot at checkout; once full, that slot disappears.
Can I sell gift hampers at a flat price?
Yes. Bundles lets you group items into a category and set a flat price when a customer's cart contains the right number of items from that category. Customers add the components themselves; the cart drops to the bundle price automatically. Stock deducts per-component as usual.
Can customers see allergens before ordering?
Yes. Add the allergen list (nut-free, gluten-free, eggless, dairy-free) to each cake's product description — it shows on the storefront before the customer adds to cart. Many bakeries also create a category like "Allergen-friendly" so customers can browse only those items.
Does WhatsMenu integrate with delivery for orders that customers don't pick up?
Yes. Connect Lalamove or Detrack for instant delivery; customers pick "delivery" instead of "pickup" at checkout. Or use your own driver via the storefront delivery flow.
Other industries that fit
Home-based food
You cook from home. You take orders on WhatsApp. You can't do 50 a day, but you can do 20. WhatsMenu gives you...
Learn more →Cafés
Pre-order pickup via WhatsApp before the morning rush. QR code dine-in so the barista isn't taking orders. Loy...
Learn more →Catering
Set menus, gala packages, headcount-driven pricing — catering is high-ticket and bespoke. WhatsMenu gives you...
Learn more →Open your bakery storefront today.
Pre-orders, custom fields, pickup slots, daily limits — all in one platform.
Create your storefront