Chapter 25: Best WordPress Themes for Bakeries to Drive Sales

Why do bakery themes matter for selling your baked goods? Small, family owned bakeries must combat the growing number of big box stores offering baked goods. Although the generic cakes of Walmart or Kroger can’t possibly compare to the beautiful creations of a skilled artisan, the price point drives some users to shy away from the local establishment that’s been in the community for decades.

You must attract the right customers, who are willing to pay a bit more for a high-quality, personalized product. One way to get your name and work in front of the right people is through your website. Finding the perfect bakery theme and showcasing your talents is crucial in the digital world of today. 

Bakery Owners Should Do These Things to Make Their Sites Work for Them

According to IBISWorld, there are approximately 8,780 bakeries in the United States, with an annual increase of around 0.6% per year between 2018 and 2023. Even though you may not have a lot of competition around you, additional home bakers may add to the numbers, depending on your state’s cottage food laws. 

If you want to stand out from the competition, you should consider these elements on your bakery website:

• Unique images of the items you create
• A color palette you can use to brand your business
• Clear pricing structure
• Ability to order online
• Gallery of custom orders
• Testimonials from happy customers
• Your story

Be sure to include how you got into the bakery business and what your passion is. You are what makes your business stand out from the competition. You have a unique tale about how your grandmother brought recipes from Italy and instilled a love of farm fresh food or how you made cookies with your caregiver after school. Storytelling is a powerful force to engage your users. 

Our Method to Find the Best Bakery Themes

When we started looking for the best WordPress bakery themes, we quickly discovered there were a ton of options. Not only were there bakery specific themes, but restaurant themes would likely work equally well. Many e-commerce themes would also work, especially if you wanted an online ordering component and to integrate with plugins such as WooCommerce. 

We decided to hone in on ones that would work for any type of setup, from the cookie artist to the full-scale bakery selling bread, cakes, donuts and cookies. From there, we narrowed the choices down to a dozen and eventually dug deeper into elements such as mobile responsiveness and aesthetics to come up with our choice of the five best bakery themes. 

What to Look for in Bakery Themes

These five themes are an excellent starting point, but every business has its own personality. If none of them quite meet your expectations, you should look for a theme that includes:

• Integration with shopping cart software
• Ability to showcase photos of your work
• Excellent mobile responsiveness
• Intuitive navigation hierarchy
• Loads fast
• Frequently updated

Finding a theme that the developer adds to often makes a difference in performance. You’ll be less open to hacking attempts and your site will remain current even as web design trends change. 

Our Top Choices for WordPress Themes for Bakeries

The top five have excellent aesthetics. They were updated within the past two months. We also looked for themes that offered free versions or an upgrade for a reasonable price. We threw out any with ongoing annual fees as you should only have to purchase your theme once and not pay for it through infinity. Here are the ones we think you’ll adore:

Cake Shop

Cake Shop is a free WordPress theme with Premium upgrade. You can get started and see if it’s going to suit your needs before making an investment. The developer provides extensive documentation to help you set up your online bakery store the way you’d like. We appreciate the left side, vertical navigation because it takes up less space with icons and gets directly to the point of the site, showcasing images of delicious treats. 

The license is $49 but you can get all of their themes bundled for $99, which gives you more options should you grow tired of this theme. 

Cake Bakery

Cake Bakery theme comes from Logical Themes. We like the cartoon baker but you could also replace that image with the founder’s face or your store logo. Note how there are categories, making this theme workable for someone who sells multiple types of baked goods. However, if you sell only cookies or cakes, you could use the categories for themes, such as birthday, wedding and holidays.  

Some of the free features include social media links, slider, templates and custom logo uploading. Upgrade to the Premium for $49 and gain global color choices, mega menu, more templates and customizations, section disabler and a gallery. 

Bakers Bakery

Bakers Bakery theme has both free and premium versions. We love the blog-like addition under the shopping links. This brings both e-commerce and blogging together beautifully and showcases the knowledge of the bakery owner and staff. The simple, modern look of the theme draws users in and also presents well on a mobile device. 

The premium version runs $39 and gives you more pre-designed templates and layouts, online ordering and translation ready. 

Bakery Store

Bakery Store has a fun, modern asymmetrical layout that we love. It makes one think of icing trailing down the page. In addition to offering categories with graphics, the header is split in half, with an image on the right and text and call to action (CTA) buttons on the left. 

The Premium version runs $39 for lifetime access and one year of support. You’ll gain additional templates, customization features and demo content. The theme is built on Bootstrap, making it load quickly. 

Our Top Choice: VW Bakery Blocks

We love the vintage look of the VW Bakery Blocks theme. This would be a perfect choice for a family-owned business or someone who embraces vintage creations. Having the contact information at the bottom of the hero image lets users get in touch quickly and place an order or ask questions. 

The free theme is: 

• Fully responsive 
• Customizable 
• Comes with a standard layout 
• Compatible with WooCommerce
• Icons to represent categories

If you’re wondering if you should upgrade to the premium theme, it really depends on how well the free theme meets your needs. We always recommend starting free and upgrading as needed. The premium version costs $40 and gives you: 

• Capability to fully customize, add and remove sections 
• Professional support 
• SEO optimized 
• Custom color palette 
• Footer customization

The professional support you receive may be the missing element that lets you take your business site to the next level. 

Make Your Bakery Unique

The right theme grabs user attention and helps your small business thrive. Local SEO requires a lot of effort. Even after you drive traffic to your page, you have to keep them there. The more intuitive your design and the easier the ordering process, the more likely they are to stick with you rather than bouncing away.