For bakeries

How to create a bakery preorders waitlist

You open a Google Form on Sunday night and by Tuesday it has more orders than you can bake. Someone has to email the people who missed out. The form does not know it is 10:15 AM, so orders keep coming in while the dough is already shaped.

The preorder Google Form takes 90 orders for 40 loaves. 7 steps, about five minutes, or one click with the recipe below.

Step by step

Set up the Daily bake yourself

These are the exact values the recipe applies. Change any of them to match your line.

  1. Create the waitlist

    Sign in, click New waitlist, and name it "Daily bake". It starts as a draft, so nothing is public until you publish.

  2. Set capacity to 40 per day

    In Settings, set the capacity to 40 per day and the reset to daily at 6:00 AM. The count starts over at every reset; nothing is deleted.

  3. Count signups 2 days ahead

    Set lead days so that a signup counts toward the window 2 days ahead. That is how a list for tomorrow fills today.

  4. Set the opening hours

    Under Hours, set signups to open Every day, 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM. Outside those hours the form shows a closed screen with the next opening time, in the joiner's time zone.

  5. Add the form fields

    Email is built in. On the Form tab, add Name (required), Loaf (required), Quantity (required), Pickup (required). Labels and help text render as plain text.

  6. Show the counter

    In Settings, turn on the counter so the form shows how many spots are left. People join faster when they can see the number.

  7. Publish and share

    Click Publish. The Share tab has the hosted link, a QR code, and the script tag or iframe for your site. The submit button reads "Reserve a loaf".

Or do it in one click

Use the recipe

The "Daily bake" recipe creates the waitlist with every step above already done. Sign in, click once, and it is live as a draft you can publish.

Create this waitlistSee the recipe page

Recipe

Daily bake

  • 40 per day
  • Every day 6 AM–8 PM
  • 2d ahead
  • 5 fields
  • 40 orders per bake day. The count for each day resets at 6:00 AM.
  • Orders are taken two days ahead: Saturday fills Monday, Sunday fills Tuesday, and so on.
  • The form takes orders every day from 6:00 AM to 8:00 PM.
  • When a day is full, the form says when orders for the next day open.
  • Asks for name, loaf, quantity (1 to 4), and pickup time.
  • Customers see their number for the day they ordered for, like "#12 for Monday".

After you publish

How the list runs

Daily capacity

Forty entries a day, reset at 6:00 AM. Tomorrow starts at zero.

A morning cutoff

Opening hours from 6:00 AM to 10:00 AM. At 10:01 the form is closed and says so.

Loaf and quantity

A dropdown for the loaf and a number field capped at four. Both land in the CSV.

Pickup time

A multiple-choice field for the window. You bag orders in pickup order.

The bake list

Export today as CSV, or webhook each order into a sheet on Pro.

Same link every day

The QR on the counter and the link in your bio never change.

FAQ

Questions people here ask

Can customers pay for the loaf online?

No. Unwaited does not take payments. Most bakeries take payment at pickup or send a link from their POS.

Does the cap count loaves or orders?

Orders. If you set 40 and allow four loaves each, you could bake up to 160. Set the cap to the number of orders you can fill, or limit quantity to one.

What about days we are closed?

Leave them out of the opening hours. Visitors see the next open morning.

Related

Keep reading

Five minutes by hand, or one click.

Free for 100 signups a month. Unlimited waitlists. Every setting above stays editable.

Create this waitlist