Orders that carry a date, a time, a size and the special requests turn into a production plan. Without that, the week lives in a notebook and in someone's head — and the day it goes wrong is always the Saturday with four collections before noon.
A deposit is the difference between a firm order and a good intention. A cake nobody collects is paid work in the bin, and taking the deposit online at the point of ordering is what stops it happening — while also making the week's planning something you can trust.
Around that you switch on the parts that fill the quiet weeks: an assistant that answers the same questions at any hour — lead times, gluten-free, collection times — and email marketing that goes back to the customer whose birthday order was a year ago. All on the same customer record.