These results may not be typical and may vary substantially by business. This content is provided for informational purposes only. Independent business, tax, financial, and legal advice should be obtained before making any business decision.
This Atlanta based, family-run, black women-owned business has been featured on CNN and visited by presidents. Founded by celebrated pastry chef Sonya Jones, Sweet Auburn serves customers in several ways: in person at their historic location, at corporate and neighborhood events, and through online orders.
They have been PayPal customers for 20+ years, utilizing Business Payments with PayPal Open for online purchases. They also use PayPal Point of Sale and invoicing for events that help expand their business.
I grew up in my family neighborhood café and I was drawn to baking in my spare time. To pursue this, I applied and got a scholarship to attend the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. After graduating, I returned to Atlanta and opened my own business to share the baked goods that I grew up loving.
The Sweet Auburn Bread Company is a tribute to the desserts of my childhood, and indeed many people's childhoods. We specialize in southern and southern-inspired desserts, aiming to create a place where we can bake memories. Our baked goods feature local ingredients such as sweet potatoes. We offer homemade pound cakes, banana breads, cookies, as well as seasonal items like peach pies and blackberry pumpkin pies.
When we started about 20 years ago, we used PayPal at checkout right from the start. When we pivoted from a single shop to multiple locations and popup shops it made things easy.
Since last fall, we have used Business Payments with PayPal Open for online. We use the PayPal Point of Sale terminals for our pop-ups. Since PayPal Point of Sale uses the PayPal dashboard, it’s easy to train new staff. We also use PayPal Working Capital, which is so helpful and easy to use. Finally, we’ve started using invoicing for events. Having everything all in one place makes things simple for us to manage.
Having President Bill Clinton visit our shop in the early days when we were part of his Economic Redevelopment plan for downtown Atlanta... well, this is an amazing memory from the early days of our business. We invented Sweet Potato Cheesecake for his visit and it’s still a big customer favorite.
We got started in a food court location, which was great for the community but was hard for us to grow. We also needed to find ways to grow our business outside just the store, and being able to do corporate events, marketings and other pop-up events has helped us a lot.
Figure out ways to make things simple when you can. For example, now that we have PayPal Point of Sale and PayPal checkout, it’s easy to send anyone to a farmers’ market or pop-up event. This also makes it easier for us to hire students from the university; and it’s great to foster a relationship like this with the community.
In partnership with three expert business owners, the PayPal Bootcamp includes practical checklists and a short video loaded with tips to help take your business to the next level.