Do a bakery’s social media accounts and following come with the sale?

For many bakeries, the social media account is the storefront. Custom cakes and pre-orders can arrive through direct messages instead of a till. The account may matter to what you are buying, and it is easy to leave out of the paperwork. Decide early what you expect to receive and have your lawyer write it in. Restaurants raise similar questions, covered in what happens to a restaurant’s social media accounts.

Access and ownership of the accounts

Ask who set up each account and whose email address and phone number are tied to it. An account registered to the owner’s personal email can be hard to move. Ask for the handover of logins, recovery details and any linked booking or payment tools. Your lawyer can say how to list these in the agreement.

The owner’s face and voice

Scroll back through the posts. If most feature the owner baking, speaking or decorating, followers may be following a person. After the sale, those followers may drift. Ask the seller whether they will introduce you in a few posts and stay visible for a short, agreed period.

The order inbox and custom-cake demand

Custom orders often live in message threads. Ask to see how orders are tracked, which are already booked, and whether the seller keeps a separate order log. Without one, booked cakes and deposits can get lost in the handover.

Telling whether the following will stay

Look at real engagement: comments, shares and repeat customers who tag the shop. Compare the account with sales records. If strong posts do not line up with orders, ask how many followers actually placed orders.