Online ordering for bakeries and cafés

A bakery or café sells online in a different way from a takeaway. Most orders are collected, not delivered, and the valuable ones are booked days ahead: birthday cakes, office platters, trays for a christening, and the Christmas rush of cakes, puddings and mince pies. What you need is an ordering site that takes the order for a specific date and time, takes payment upfront, and stops when you’re fully booked.

Bakeries and cafés in Irish cities

In the Dublin area, cafés are almost as numerous as restaurants (1,158 mapped) and outnumber takeaway outlets (991). The counts are a floor: many bakeries that also serve coffee are mapped only as cafés, and some aren’t mapped at all. The CSO’s food service figures don’t separate bakeries, because many are registered as manufacturers or shops.

How bakery and café orders work online

• Scheduled pre-orders. The customer picks a collection date and time when ordering. You set the minimum notice.
• Slot limits. Set how many orders each time slot can take, so the 9 a.m. Saturday collection doesn’t get 40 cakes.
• Payment upfront. Card payments go into your own Stripe account when the order is placed, which cuts no-shows.
• Options on each item. Cake size, sponge and filling as required choices or extras.
• Pause when you’re full. Switch off online ordering for a period when the oven is at capacity.
• Collection first. Delivery is there if you want it later, with fees by distance and live tracking.

The Christmas window

For bakeries, Christmas is the biggest pre-order season of the year, and many of those orders are planned weeks ahead. Taking those orders online, paid in advance, with a fixed collection slot, replaces a paper diary and a phone that doesn’t stop ringing. In Waterford, Winterval runs every Friday to Sunday from 13 November to 23 December 2026, and city-centre cafés can take pre-orders for collection on those weekends.

Set a minimum notice that matches your baking schedule, cap the slots on the last few days before Christmas, and close online ordering when you’re full.

Allergens

Cakes and bread almost always contain gluten, eggs and milk, and often nuts. The FSAI says that for food ordered at a distance, allergen information must be available in writing before the order is placed and again when the customer receives it. On your own site you can write the allergens into each item’s description; keep printed allergen information at the counter for collection.

What the apps cost a café

Uber Eats publishes its Irish rates: 13% when the customer collects or you deliver and 30% when Uber delivers, plus a €650 activation fee (checked on 6 October 2026). On a €45 celebration cake collected from your counter, 13% is €5.85 before VAT. On your own site, there’s no app commission on that order.

How OrdFox helps bakeries and cafés

• Your own ordering site on your own domain; your own iOS app on the Professional plan (Android is coming soon).
• Scheduled pre-orders with minimum notice and slot limits.
• Card payments upfront into your own Stripe account.
• A counter POS on any tablet for walk-in and phone orders.
• Coupons and a digital loyalty card for regulars.
• Support in English and Portuguese; Brazilian and Portuguese bakeries can read this page in Portuguese.

Plans start from €45 a month billed annually (€59 monthly), ex. VAT, on a 12-month agreement. Setup is tailored and quoted before you commit. See pricing.