To ship cookies so they arrive whole and fresh, send sturdy ones, bake them the day before they go out, cool them fully, seal them in pairs or small stacks, pack them tight inside a tin or box so nothing moves, and put that inside a bigger box with cushioning all round. Ship early in the week by a service that arrives in two or three days, so no box sits in a warehouse over a weekend. In summer, skip cookies with chocolate coatings or soft frosting, or add an insulated liner and a cold pack; at Christmas, ship early and expect the carriers to be slower than their usual times. Before any of it, check that your state's rules let you sell cookies by mail at all, and to where. In the example below, a home baker's dozen chocolate chip cookies costs $16.20 to make and $19.00 to pack and ship in summer, and the price is set from both. Below is which cookies travel, how to pack them, summer and Christmas, the cost of a box, and keeping track of what went where.
The short version
- Ship sturdy cookies: drop cookies, shortbread, biscotti. Avoid delicate, frosted or cream-filled ones.
- Bake the day before shipping, cool completely, and seal in pairs, back to back.
- Pack tight in a tin or box, fill every gap, then box that inside a bigger box with cushioning.
- Ship Monday to Wednesday by a two- or three-day service.
- Summer: no chocolate coatings, or an insulated liner and cold pack.
- Christmas: ship early in December and allow extra days.
- Price the shipping and packing in, and check your state's rules on selling by mail first.
Which cookies travel
| Travels well | Travels badly |
|---|---|
| Drop cookies: chocolate chip, oatmeal, peanut butter | Thin, lacy or brittle cookies that snap |
| Shortbread and butter cookies | Cookies with soft frosting or glaze that smears |
| Biscotti and twice-baked cookies | Cream-filled sandwich cookies |
| Bars, if sturdy and wrapped one by one | Anything chocolate-coated, in summer |
| Decorated sugar cookies with fully dried royal icing | Meringues |
How to pack them
- Cool completely. Warm cookies sweat in the bag and go soft.
- Seal in pairs, back to back, or in small stacks, in food-safe bags, so they protect each other.
- Pack tight in a tin or sturdy box. Fill the gaps with crinkle paper so nothing can slide; a cookie that moves is a cookie that breaks.
- Box inside a box. Put the tin in a shipping box with at least 2 inches of cushioning on every side.
- Label it: "Perishable" if you like, and your lot and best-by date on the inner box, so the customer knows how long it's good for.
How to work out a cookie's shelf life before you promise one is in shelf life study template.
Shipping cookies in summer
Heat is the main enemy. Chocolate chips survive better than chocolate coatings, and a box can sit in a hot truck or on a doorstep for hours. In summer:
- Choose cookies that won't melt: skip dipped and coated ones, or save them for cooler months.
- Use an insulated liner and a cold pack for anything with a lot of chocolate.
- Ship by a faster service and early in the week, so the box spends as little time in transit as possible.
- Tell the customer when it's coming, so it isn't left on a doorstep all afternoon.
Shipping cookies for Christmas
December is the busiest month for carriers, and boxes take longer than the usual times. Ship early in the month, check your carrier's holiday shipping deadlines, and tell customers the last order date plainly on your site. Bake in batches you can pack the same or next day, so a week's orders don't wait on the shelf going stale.
What a box costs
Windward Roots, the made-up taro business I use in these examples, ships a dozen chocolate chip cookies in summer:
| Per dozen, shipped | Cost |
|---|---|
| 12 cookies at $1.35, full cost | $16.20 |
| Tin, crinkle paper and food-safe bags | $2.10 |
| Shipping box and cushioning | $1.40 |
| Insulated liner and cold pack, summer only | $3.50 |
| Postage, two-day, for a box this size (check your carrier) | $12.00 |
| Total, delivered | $35.20 |
The cookies are $16.20 of it; packing and postage are $19.00 in summer, $15.50 without the cold pack. A shipped dozen priced like a counter dozen loses money, so price it as delivered, or charge shipping separately and say so. How the $1.35 cookie was costed is in how to price baked goods.
The rules first
Whether you can sell cookies by mail at all depends on your state. Some cottage food laws allow shipping, some only within the state, some not at all; a licensed kitchen has fewer limits. Check before your first online order; where to start is in how to start a cottage food business. This is general information, not legal advice.
Where this stops working
Shipping a few boxes is easy. Shipping forty in the week before Christmas is not: orders come in from your online store, a batch is baked on Sunday, half the boxes go Monday and the rest wait, a customer's box is late, and nobody can say which batch was in it or whether it was the one with the short best-by date.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps the batches, the orders and what went in each box together.
Orders in, from your store. Orders from your Shopify store come in, and we set that up with you. Sales orders show whether the stock to fill them is on the shelf, and a warning shows when an order you promised hasn't shipped.
Every batch with its date. Recording a batch takes ingredients off stock at what you paid and puts the cookies into a lot with its best-by date, and lot labels print with both.
And every box, traced. Shipping takes the cookies from a lot you choose, so the oldest goes first, and delivery notes print with each line's lot and best-before date. If a customer writes about a box, the order shows which batch was in it.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Which orders are waiting? | A list on the fridge | Orders not yet shipped, flagged |
| Which batch went in this box? | Unknown | The lot, on the order |
| Is the stock there for Monday's boxes? | Count the tins | Shown on the order as you type it |
| What does a dozen cost now? | Set once | Every batch, at what you paid |
Recipes, batches, lots, sales orders and shipping are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.