Beautiful and Tasty Gift Options Make My Favorite Muffin® an Even More Competitive Franchise Opportunity

Walk-in customers are the bread and butter for My Favorite Muffin locations, but what also makes the brand such a robust franchise opportunity is its multiple gift options .

From items such as muffin-filled trays and baskets, the brand’s gifting opportunities help franchisees stay competitive in their markets. Indeed, it’s a business that can offer a unique gifting option that is not often found in the food space.

Gift options and growth

“Gift baskets take you beyond the four walls of the store,” My Favorite Muffin Director of Marketing Leslie Walters said. “The growth potential is somewhat unlimited. Your clients can send gifts anywhere. That lends itself to be a business opportunity for growth.”

To help develop this particular revenue opportunity, the brand did some informal research at its Louisville, Kentucky store and spoke with customers who had come in and purchased larger quantities of muffins.

“We wanted to find out who the recipient was,” Walters said. “It wasn’t a formal, extensive survey. We just asked most of the customers over a two-day period who they were buying for, and 70% were buying for somebody else. This wasn’t limited to baskets or trays. Some were buying boxes of muffins.”

The result: The brand learned that muffins are “very giftable,” Walters said.

“People want to treat people,” Walters said. “The sheer nature of this wonderful product is that you want to share it with people. It’s just good, easy and portable.”

The most popular gift item the brand offers is the Mini Muffin Gift Tray, which can consist of up to eight dozen of the brand’s beloved mini muffins.

“The gift trays make for very nice business opportunities,” Walters said. “Those do very well.”

The gifts are also easy for store employees to assemble. Gift baskets, for example, are wrapped in cellophane and can be pulled together quickly. The gifts require very limited inventory since the muffins are there every day.

“You just need a few baskets and bows,” Walters said. “By having this gift option as a franchisee, you look competitive and relevant. It shows the consumer how lovely the product is and that it has value.”

When it comes to the most popular item at Susan Dean’s Louisville, Kentucky store, that honor goes to the mini muffin trays.

“Those are very popular for businesses and make for a pretty presentation due to the different colors and textures,” Dean said. “They make an impact. It’s easy for us to put together and it’s easy for the customer to serve.”

Dean, who genuinely loves the muffins and describes herself as My Favorite Muffin’s “number one fan,” noted that customers come to her location seeking gifts every day and that a lot of them also place orders ahead of time. This leads to more business from customers who otherwise may never have heard of the brand thanks to someone bringing a tray to, say, the office. Her franchise also gets a lot of repeat business from customers in the area who purchase gift options every holiday season.

“Sometimes customers tell us they received a gift and it was good, so they come to us to buy muffins for a different occasion,” Dean said.

Dean loves how My Favorite Muffin is a unique franchise opportunity .

“The good thing about My Favorite Muffin is that we don’t have competition,” Dean said. “You can’t compare our muffins to the muffins you find at the grocery store, and there’s also no mini muffin competition. We are it.”