Before we move on to the store update, you should note that this entry is also our very first podcast! I’ve been wanting to do a podcast for a very long time, but didn’t really have a great reason to do it. Then it hit me that it would really add a lot to The Baker’s Dog website. It turns out that taking the video was the easy part. It was all of the editing, learning, copying, pasting, and waiting to get it out on the Internet that made it harder! I don’t think we’ll podcast on a regular schedule and it won’t always be video. So be sure to subscribe (RSS or iTunes) and you’ll be updated automatically! Without further delay, here’s the video I slaved over that I hope you really like:

Baker’s Dog Podcast: In Living Color from The Baker’s Dog on Vimeo.

 

 Baker's Dog Podcast Episode #1: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Also on YouTube in low definition.

Since we don’t have a money tree, and given these uncertain economic times, we’re trying to control costs where it makes the most sense (cents?). Therefore we decided to paint the store ourselves. The only hesitation in our decision was considering that a few walls are as high as 25′. We looked into ladders and scaffolding before I ultimately decided we should rent a scissor lift for speed and safety. (The fact it has an actual joystick and makes “robot noises” may have had something to do with it. But whatever.) I picked up a 19′ scissor lift from the local equipment rental place and little did we know how wobbly the lift gets at that height! It was really scary until we took a couple of rides to get our bearings. On the first day, we put a coat of “new construction” primer on all of the walls. This type of primer is super thick- it’s basically thinned out plaster. We were exhausted by the end of the night.

The next day, we got the colors on and the thinner interior latex went much quicker (though not quite as fast as in the video). The overall the paint job is a decent one. But I think we’ll stick to making deliciously healthy pet treats. We chose a neutral gray for the front half of the store and a pumpkin orange for the back half. I gotta’ admit, the impact of the orange when standing at the front door is pretty cool. We picked orange because it has a decidedly modern feel when it’s beside the gray foreground. Plus, we figured orange can be a fall color when it’s coupled with brown accents or a beachy summer color when coupled with electric blue and yellow.

We decided to go ahead an keep the scissor lift for a full week to clean up the lights, do some finish work around the windows, and clean the glass. The following day, we did some touch up while our amazing new little printer was installed. It’s really hard to explain how the printer actually cuts the stickers out, so I grabbed some video of that as well. We’re going to experiment with quality settings and the material we print on so we get the best looking and easiest to apply labels we can.

The feedback and reaction we’ve been getting on the packaging has been nothing short of amazing. It just gets me pumped up even more to get things going ASAP! Now, I need to get hopping on the website side of things so you fine folks can upload your photos with no muss or fuss. If you’re a subscriber to the website, you’ll probably be asked to help us test things out before we go fully live. You and your dogs be rewarded for your efforts!

Standing at the front door of the store

After lots of back and forth with realtors and lawyers (lots), we got the keys to the store. This is a new construction space that has never been occupied. Which is why nobody noticed the leaky ceiling and lack of running water. In other words, we are completely starting from scratch. As I mentioned in the About Us blog post, this store is exactly twice as big as Tracy’s current store. We don’t necessarily need more retail space. But we need all of the cooking and production space we can get. We’re upgrading to large capacity baking equipment and adding new services like our in house printed packaging and we want more than 2 people to be able to work back there without them wanting to kill each other!

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This is the front of a promotional postcard that we're distributing locally.

The catalyst that really got us excited about The Baker’s Dog plan was the custom photo package treats. We know so many dog lovers that have great pictures of their dogs. One of the first things I did was design the label. The base label is a simple black and white design that really let’s the photos stand out. You will also see this design concept carried through to the website, promotional materials and the retail store interior design.

Click for a larger version.

The original idea was to have monthly photo contests and choose a new picture per flavor for that month. But after some quick thought, we realized we should let our customers upload pictures online and order treats with their pups picture on them whenever they like. We bag the treats fresh when you order them anyway, so it really wasn’t that big of a leap. We still need photos for our packages that we sell in the retail store. We’ll pick those from the uploaded pictures <strong>if you give us permission to do so</strong>. If we pick your photo, we’ll send you some free treats!

The printing method we use is identical to our retail store packages. Since it’s an integral part of our process, we can offer this personalized service with no expensive minimum order requirements or long turn around times. The labels are printed on demand by a high quality, full color Roland printer to a nice glossy white sticker using environmentally friendly inks. The printer also cuts the label out and it is hand applied to each recycled paper bag before we fill it with delicious, fresh baked treats!

We want to photo upload process to be easy. So we are still developing the store part of the website to make it as simple as possible for our customers to upload and manage their photos. Stay tuned!

The Baker’s Dog is a pet bakery and retail store located in Myrtle Beach, SC. We have over 10 years commercial pet baking experience in the Myrtle Beach area. All of our treats are made from people quality ingredients with no added salt, sugar, or preservatives. We offer a variety of treats ranging from hard to soft and we even have wheat-free and corn-free nibbles for your allergic pooch.

Our retail store is located at 6703 North Kings Highway Unit A in beautiful Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

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