The company called Ma-Ka-Rohn recently filed for Bankruptcy in 2024. Created in 2015, the bakery focused on macarons with an "American Twist".

I know about them since 2017. I will detail in this post the reasons of this downfall, and how to avoid this from happening to your own business.

• Why this post
• Macaron quality issue
• Huge delay & poor customer service
• Lack of transparency
• Inefficient website
• Wrong business model

• Why this post

On December 2nd 2024, a customer chatted with me on our website. She said they needed macarons asap for an event. They ordered macarons from another place, and after months they never received any update. She also mentioned that they were "going out of business".

So I asked, what is the name of this business. She answered "Ma-ka-Rohn". And of course, I knew very well about them for years: They are our main competitor.

So I did a quick search. Their website was now showing "merchant not found". I then found the confirmation: Ma-Ka-Rohn filed for Bankruptcy earlier this year.

I was shocked because this company was here before Pastreez, when my wife and I arrived in the US in 2017. At the time we were selling macarons at farmers market. Below is Pastreez very first customer ever Lucy.

Back then, there were only two macaron stores online: Ma-ka-rohn and Dana's bakery. While Dana's bakery seems more robust (even though they are slowly drifting from selling macarons to cookies), I was always skeptical about MaKaRohn for many reasons that I will describe below.

I feel sad for them. But I always felt their downfall was predictable. I studied their business model before we went 100% online back in the days.

I also write this post to help you to avoid making the same mistakes with your own business. Here are my insights.

• Macaron quality issue

Along Pastreez journey, I ordered from competitors. Simply to try their order process, customer service, packaging, quality and taste. I wrote an article to compare and find the best macarons online (I'm trying to stay objective!).

It also helps us to avoid some of their flaws and improve our service.

That's why I ordered two times from them and wrote a detailed Ma-Ka-Rohn macarons review.

Their macarons were low quality. Most of them were soggy (wet), the shells were hollowed and crumbly, and the filling was a simple buttercream with mostly artificial flavor.

It was really a disaster of quality to be honest. To the point that I would not call it a macaron, since it is closer to a bite-size cake, texture being mushy.

Product quality is the most important for your bakery. Especially online. If you make good stuff, people will come back.

My first order with them was in 2017, then 2020, then 2024. I noticed the same quality issue over the years: Not better, not worst. That's not a good sign of sustainable business. But I also checked a couple of other things.

• Huge Delays / Poor customer service

On my most recent 2024 order with Ma-Ka-Rohn, I experience a huge delay. And I mean, HUGE. We're talking about 5 weeks before the order shipped.

I researched internet to see if other customers were getting the same issue. I was amazed by how many unhappy customers there were. Not only about quality, but about delays. And delays are objectives: A month is a month. Below is an example of what I found.

Every business can experience some poor reviews of course. But with Ma-Ka-Rohn, each of their posts on social was getting dozens of similar comments.

I personally experienced 5 weeks delay on my 2024 order. Perhaps they were already getting out of business..

Back in 2020, my order arrived in 2 weeks, which is "better", but still not ideal.

In addition, there was a lack of customer service. I never received any kind of response to my emails when I inquired about the estimate date of arrival. Which bring me to the next point.

• Lack of transparency

No story. No names. No phone number. There is literally no information about who is behind Ma-Ka-Rohn. Anywhere.

At Pastreez, we have three ways for support: email, live chat with me, and even by text (on my personal cell). We're not perfect, but I try to be as close and as present as possible to our customers. That's how I can gather great feedbacks for improvements. And also because that's who we are: Artisan passionated macaron bakers.

Here at Ma-Ka-Rohn, i tried very hard to find info about the founders. Nothing on their website.

To me, this is a big mistake. Ordering online is about trust. Especially for food.

You need to earn trust of your customers. Before they purchase, they are prospects. They don't know you. They never tried your product. You need to be fully transparent. Who are you? Why should I order from you? Can I trust you? Do I have some kind of guarantee? These are questions to be answered.

Here is a statement example: At Pastreez, our French chefs handcraft macarons daily and ship it fresh to your door, so you can delight your guests.

Our value is clear: Authenticity and craftsmanship. We also have a dedicated page detailing our story, where we come from, where we are going. Le Cordon Bleu Paris even wrote on their blog that we make the "most authentic macarons in the US".

None of this was present on Ma-Ka-Rohn website. Talking about their website..

• Inefficient website

Since we started in 2017, our website evolved, improved, thanks to customer feedbacks. For example, we were the first ones to build an interactive macaron menu, allowing you to build your own set online.

At Ma-Ka-Rohn, their website barely improved since 2017. It is actually one of the worst e-commerce site I have ever seen.

Their website is now shut down. But I was able to get some screenshots from my previous Ma-Ka-Rohn review. 

One problem (among others) is that you must "add to cart" each macaron. It means that you have to have in your cart each macaron one by one. That's a lot of clicks: One click per macaron + few more clicks to go back to each macaron page.

Why not creating a dedicated page allowing your customers to build their own dozen? If it was your first version of the website, I would understand. But Ma Ka Rohn was in the business for years.

And I think I know the reason why. The two founders (I was able to find some info about them) are both "kitchen" people. None of them focused on improving the customer's experience. They were most likely both focused on the production side of the business which is making macarons.

I myself not in the kitchen much, to handle customer care and improve our product / service. My wife Yami is the chef who is most of the time in the kitchen focusing on making delicious macarons. Your team must have a balance of what's vital in your bakery, which is sales / customer's experience / product quality.

This was another critical mistake to me. They surely got the feedback from customers before about the order process being harsh. But still, they haven't made it easier for their customers to order over the years.

• Wrong business model

• Diversify your offer

Having ONE type of customers is usually ideal per product: Female? Male? Age range? Location? This way you can target easier your prospects online, and build your business to answer their concerns.

But sometimes, especially when you sell a single product like macarons, it's important to diversify. Simply because our product can be used in a various range of situations. And you need to have product variants to meet your customers needs.

For example at Pastreez, we sell macarons for bridal showers (towers), baby showers (pink and blue macarons), corporate events (print customization), macaron enthusiasts (subscription box), family gatherings (family packs), valentine's day (heart shaped macarons), etc.

Each target has a clear product type. Even though macarons are a single product, they can come in multiple shapes, colors, sets, displays, etc.

Ma-Ka-Rohn had only 12 macaron sets for sale. It means that you only get one type of customer. They advertised only about this.

And having only 12 sets sold at around $45 including shipping is a very tight game. Let's cut it: $10 shipping, $2 for packaging / labels / stickers, $5 for ingredients, employees? Add it.. And then you have Ad cost per sale. That's a very short profit. Selling 24, 48 and bigger sets would be more comfortable business wise. It would solve customer's problems as well (for a wedding you need more than 12 macarons).

Do you want a gift box with your macarons? Do you want a tower? Do you want to customize them? Even the classic colors like pink and blue were missing on Ma-Ka-Rohn's menu.

It narrows down a lot of your customers, and that doesn't help over time when your company faces the challenges that I am listing below.

• Do not rely on paid ads

• Meta ads are not sustainable

This is probably Ma-Ka-Rohn biggest mistake.

When I started Pastreez in April 2017, I was amazed by the number of visitors on their website: Up to 15,000 / month. I used a tool called Semrush to estimate website visitors (and much more).

As I dug further, I noticed 90% of their traffic was coming from Facebook ads. It is now called Meta Ads and regroups Facebook, Instagram, etc.

I knew at this moment that MaKaRohn was not a sustainable business. It was the perfect cocktail: Single product, poor quality, no variant, poor customer service, huge delay, low profit, and dependence over social ads.

Facebook has an ad library that I often check. You can search by brand. Ma-Ka-Rohn has dozens of new ads monthly.

Since the company founders were not marketing people, having this many ads proved that they hired an ad agency. Nothing wrong with it, but make sure you don't put all your eggs in the same basket.

In 2017, ad cost per sale were acceptable and MaKaRohn were surely making a profit. But over the years.. Ad costs rose up. Because there is much more competition online today that there was in 2017.

Also because it is harder to track conversion coming from social networks, due to new regulations.

When the ad cost skyrocketed, companies were starting to switch their business model. But Ma-Ka-Rohn did not.

They kept digging and digging.. No change on their store, no change on their business model. They were probably hoping that ad costs will decline. But it did not.

And keep in mind, while ad cost rose up, the company still kept their same and only 12 macarons product. At some point, the ad cost per sale had to surpass their profit.

That's how I knew for sure that one day Ma-Ka-Rohn would sadly go under. And as an online store, I saw something else that would be critical.

• Google is your best friend

Every E-commerce stores must be optimized for Google. That's a must when you sell 100% online.

From my research, Ma-Ka-Rohn made very few efforts to be seen properly by Google. It means that over time, people won't be able to find them online from casual research.

Most customers would find Makarohn by searching the term "Ma-Ka-Rohn" on Google. This is surely because they were hit by an ad on socials.

But again, if your paid ad strategy falls, and the price per acquisition becomes too high, you are doomed. You need to spend too much to actually get sales.

See below an extract of Semrush tool, showing the top Google organic keywords to find Ma-Ka-Rohn website.

Ideally, you want people to find from generic / various terms like "where to buy macarons", "macaron shipped", etc.

But branded traffic like this, either show you're very popular (like Ladurée) which is a good thing, or that people come from social ads.

It also means that traffic outside of ads will not come. This circle never ends: You need money to survive, but you spend too much getting customers with ads.

A sustainable approach is using Google as your best friend. Answer people's questions about your products.

Check Pastreez blog for example. We answer every single question about macarons: What is a macaron? How to store macarons? Can they be frozen?.. We try to answer most common questions in depth so we can rank properly on search engines.

It also shows Google that we're legit selling macarons, because we are actually answering questions about it. That's how you rank better over time on Google.

 For all these reasons, I knew that Ma-Ka-Rohn would fail soon. And to be honest, I thought it would be sooner.

They refused to improve their business model and relied too much on paid. They kept a unique product (12 macarons set). They did not improve their product and service (poor macaron quality, huge delivery delay, no customer service).

All of these are ingredients for a planned failure.

I hope you find this article interesting! Learning from mistakes is what makes us improve.

Please comment below if you have extra question about building a sustainable bakery shop online!