As of July 30th 2025, we no longer offer our cakes for shipment.
Over time, several challenges have made it increasingly difficult to maintain the standard you expect:
- 📦 Rising costs for specialty packaging and essential dry ice used for the cakes have driven up shipping and handling charges. Unlike major online retailers, we simply cannot absorb these expenses without passing them on.
- ⚠️ Shipping reliability has become unpredictable—weather delays, address errors, and UPS carrier issues have led to a multitude of missing or delayed deliveries and damaged goods. UPS has made it increasingly difficult to file a damaged/lost claim and has become more resistant towards providing refunds on shipments.
- 💔 When deliveries go wrong, they detract from the special occasions they were meant to enhance—and we never want to contribute to a moment of disappointment.
We deeply appreciate your loyalty and passion for our cakes. For customers looking to send cakes to loved ones in Michigan or Ohio, we’re happy to share that many local retailers in those areas continue to carry our cakes. Several offer convenient home delivery services that may provide a more reliable and cost-effective alternative to this service that we have provided.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support. Our commitment to quality and to you, our incredible community, remains as strong as ever.
Cakes Prepared For Shipping Make The Journey
We completely understand the sticker shock of our web prices and would like to offer an explanation. Our cake is not available in all areas of the United States and Bill Knapp’s is very excited to give the opportunity for those that love our cake the ability to order it. Many people have shared their fond memories of the Bill Knapp’s restaurants with us, including the Celebration Cakes, and because it means so much to people, we really wanted to preserve these warm memories by optimizing the safety of our cakes during shipment. Baked goods, specifically cakes, are delicate and can be damaged easily, so we have put our best efforts forth regarding the research of what will best secure our cakes during shipment. We absolutely dread the thought someone has paid to have a cake shipped to their house, or to a loved one, and the cake has arrived damaged.
Custom Packaging That Keeps Your Shipment Fresh & Safe
In order to protect the cake as it tumbles through the home delivery system (ex: a bouncing delivery truck, an airplane experiencing turbulence, or even a delivery person rushing to finish their route), we have sourced sustainable, insulated packaging and inserts to maintain temperatures during shipment as well as keeping the cake in place. We have also determined that dry ice is the best option to keep the temperature of the shipment cold for as long as possible so that the cake remains frozen during shipment, and in turn prevents shifting, smashing, and other damage to the cake. Additionally, packages containing dry ice, a hazardous material, require special attention and extra time to prepare to ensure the package arrives successfully, and more importantly, to ensure the safety of all people in the delivery network, including the recipient.
The custom packaging mentioned above can be two to three times the cost of the cake, and although we would love to reduce these costs, it would severely impact the integrity of the package, and therefore the cake. It seems that other companies that ship cakes also have come across similar, if not the same, obstacles. Most of our competitors’ prices for cakes available for shipping range from $40-$60 on average.
We apologize for the shock of the price, and, if possible, we sincerely encourage purchasing our cakes in-store. We have been excited to launch this ordering system so that cakes are available to those that do not have access to purchasing our cakes at their local grocery store and we do hope that this helps close the gap in availability.
With all this being said, we acknowledge that there is room for improvement, and will continue to search for ways to improve the entire ordering process. This is a very new experience for our company, and although this process was thoroughly researched, we are continuing to learn as we go. Also, please know that although shipping rates are out of our control, we intend to work with different shippers to minimize the additional service charges associated with residential deliveries and the shipping of hazardous materials, as well as overall shipping rates.
If you have any further questions, or if there is anything else that we can help you with, please let us know.
Sincerely,
The Bill Knapp’s Team