Ruby’s Bakery needed a website that looked as good as the cakes and stayed as current as the seasonal range. The old Wix site was slow and awkward to update, so we rebuilt it as a fast, hand-coded site in their deep-burgundy and cream branding, with a product catalogue Page Forge keeps up to date for them. They are moving to the new site at rubys-bakery.co.uk. I will not invent a sales lift they have not seen yet.
Emily, one of the bakery’s directors, wanted three things: a look worthy of the product, pages that load quickly, and a way to keep the range current without wrestling a clunky editor.
Why did a Burgess Hill bakery leave Wix?
Ruby’s is a family bakery in Burgess Hill, handmade cakes and teatime treats since 2007, supplying farm shops, garden centres and coffee shops across England and Wales. Wendy and Dave Sullivan founded it after decades in food distribution and baking. Three generations now work across the bake, the finishing, the office and the deliveries. They are SALSA certified, hold a 5-out-of-5 food hygiene rating, and have picked up back-to-back regional Prestige Awards.
The website did not reflect any of that. Wix made adding or changing a product a fiddle, so the site sat a step behind the actual range. A stockist on a phone wants to see what is actually available. A heavy builder template is also slow on farm-shop Wi-Fi, and a slow page is a poor first meeting.
The move from Wix is a rebuild, not an export. We took the facts that were already true (the awards, the hygiene rating, the family story, the trade offer) and put them on pages that load properly.
What did we build for stockists, not just browsers?
The brief was trade-led. Ruby’s already sells through their own fleet, agents and distributors. The site has to win the next farm shop or garden centre, then make it obvious how to become a stockist.
- A refreshed design in deep burgundy and cream, with real photography of the bakes rather than generic food shots.
- A fast, hand-coded build. Static pages instead of a Wix template, so a buyer on a phone is not waiting for a page builder to finish thinking.
- A managed product catalogue. Page Forge adds, edits and swaps products as the seasonal range changes. The bakery does not log into an editor. They tell us what has changed. We update it.
- A clear stockist path. Credentials up front (SALSA, 5-star hygiene, family run since 2007, England and Wales coverage) and a route for trade buyers who want to list the range.
This is closer to a catalogue and a trade front door than a consumer checkout. The same thinking sits on our websites for online shops page: show the range, keep it current, make the next step obvious. The family story stays on the page because independent stockists care about it.
How did the content and the move work?
We sat down with Emily and worked from the real range and the real trade offer. The pages name Burgess Hill, Sussex, and the England and Wales supply. That is the same local honesty we use on web design in Burgess Hill. ChatGPT and Google prefer a page that states those facts. They do not need a “#1 bakery in Mid Sussex” line, and we did not write one.
rubys-bakery.co.uk already existed, so when they cut over we map the old Wix addresses with 301 redirects. I will not invent crawl data. Keep the domain, keep the true sentences, give search engines a faster page.
They are still moving. The new site is live on a preview URL and the public domain is the destination. Pretending wholesale orders jumped on day one would be fiction.
Ruby’s tell us when a line is in, out, or replaced. We update the catalogue so the site stays in step with the bakery.
If you run a food business in Burgess Hill and your site is slower than the product, get in touch.
Frequently asked questions
Are they fully on the new domain yet?
They are moving. The new site is built and live to view. The public address is rubys-bakery.co.uk. I will not pretend the cutover is finished if it is still in progress.
Do they update the products themselves?
No. Page Forge manages the catalogue. They tell us what has changed. We make the edit. That was a core part of the brief, because the old Wix editor was the thing they wanted to stop fighting.
Is this a shop people can order cakes from?
The site is built to show the range and win stockists: farm shops, garden centres and coffee shops. Trade buyers get a clear path. It is not a consumer checkout dressed up as a wholesale site.
Will leaving Wix hurt their Google listing?
Not if the domain stays put and the old addresses redirect. Rankings are never guaranteed. The risk is deleting URLs without a map, not leaving the builder.
Why not keep Wix and just tidy the design?
A fresh skin would have left the two problems that brought Emily to us: a fiddle to update, and pages heavier than they needed to be.
Handmade in Sussex since 2007, now with a website to match.