Setting Up Local Pickup for Your Food Business

Pickup is the backbone of most home food businesses: no shipping, no delivery driving, and a chance to meet your customers. Local Cottage Foods gives you a few built-in settings that make pickup effortless for both sides — here's how to use them well.

Save your pickup locations

Start by adding one or more pickup locations. You can mark which are active, set a default that's pre-selected at checkout, and — if you choose — keep your full street address private until you accept an order, so casual browsers never see where you live (recommended for residential addresses).

Create recurring pickup schedules

Attach recurring weekly windows to each location — say Friday 3–6pm and Saturday 9am–noon. Concentrating pickups into set windows lets you bake in batches and keeps your week predictable instead of coordinating every order one by one.

Set a lead time so you're never rushed

Lead time is the minimum notice you need before a pickup. Set it (for example, order at least 48 hours ahead) and buyers simply won't be offered a slot sooner than you can shop, bake, and pack. Made-to-order items can carry their own lead time on top of the schedule.

Cap each window with slot capacity

If you can only handle so many orders in one window, set a slot capacity. Once a window fills, it closes automatically — protecting your quality and your sanity on busy weeks.

Cut down on no-shows

Prepaid orders get picked up; unpaid holds often don't. Taking payment at checkout commits the order — see online checkout vs. pay-at-pickup — and pairing pickup with pre-orders and inventory limits keeps your batches right-sized.