When the Spokane enterprise owned by John and Annette Cummings botches any of the products it makes, as inevitably occurs while its training new employees, they dont go to waste. Theyre consumed, and eagerly so.


Our neighbors love us, quips John Cummings.


He and his wife operate Cookies by Design, a franchise business at 5503 N. Wall that makes and delivers hand-decorated cookie bouquets in a wide range of shapes and themes, as well as other cookie gifts, for business and personal occasions.


The store, which employs seven people, including the owners, has increased its sales steadily since opening in 1994periodic cookie rejects asideand now grosses about $250,000 annually, Cummings says.


We were breaking even by our third month. I think its just the uniqueness and word of mouth. We were profitable by the end of the year, he says.


Cummings attributes part of Cookie by Designs growth to a marketing method in which it designs, creates, and gives out complimentary cookie bouquets customized for particular targeted businesses, including ones with cookies decorated to look like the businesses logos.


Initially, when delivering the complimentary bouquets, Cummings says, I would act like Id gotten lost, then drop the bouquets off to the pleasant surprise of the recipients. He no longer uses that ruse, but says the complimentary bouquets remain effective at boosting sales.


We dont advertise anymore. We just give out bouquets, because it just doesnt do them justice until you see them in the 3-D form, Cummings says.


The bouquets consist of thick sugar cookies, decorated with brightly colored icing, mounted on sticks and arranged in a basket to create a festive look. Whats most captivating is the more than 350 shapes the cookies are available infrom apples to zebras, Cummings saysand the intricacy of the icing designs.


Cookies by Design offers bouquets tailored to routine events such as births, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, and holidays, and to thank you and get well messages. It also, though, offers them in an array of more focused areas such as business, school, sports, kids, pets, and so on, and accepts custom orders.


Thats the nice part. You can really personalize them and do whatever you like, Cummings says. He adds, Business-to-business kind of stuff is a huge part of our business because of the (stores ability to reproduce) company logos.


The cookies range in price from $23.50 for a three-cookie bouquet to $79 for a 12-cookie bouquet. Individual decorated cookies on a stick are $6 each. Bouquets featuring cookie likenesses of popular Disney-licensed cartoon characters cost a couple of dollars more. Cookies by Design also offers one-, two-, or three-cookie mugs, for $13 to $25, and 13-inch pan cookies for $23. Separate from the sugar cookies, it sells gourmet cookies for 90 cents each, available in bags, baskets, or boxes, with a two-dozen-cookie box selling for $25.10.


It charges $5 to $10 for local deliveries and United Parcel Service fees of $10 to $19 for shipped orders.


The prices for the decorated cookies are substantially higher than what consumers pay for most processed cookies, but Cummings says thats because they are made completely by hand, from mixing the dough and icing to baking them, and then decorating each one individually.


All but a tiny portion of the decorating is done freehand, with squeeze-type bags of icing that are fitted with different tips. Cookies by Design has a couple of employeesreferred to as cookie artistswhose sole task each day is to do that decorating, he says. Such work tends over time to be hard on employees wrists, so Cummings says hes working to design an airbrush-type frosting applicator that would ease that stress.


If I can pull it off, the franchise will go crazy, he asserts.


Cummings says he and his wife own the 3,000-square-foot building in which Cookies By Design is located. Their business occupies half of the building, and they lease out the other half.


Though most of the cookie orders come in by phone, the store also welcomes walk-in customers and has a showroom in which it displays a broad sampling of its bouquets. Beyond the showroom is a commercial kitchen, a decorating area, and an assembly area, where baskets, ribbons, and other materials needed to put the finishing touches on each cookie gift are kept.


Creating a typical bouquet is about a two-hour process, and Cookies by Design typically requires a one-day advance notice on orders.


The cookies clearly capture the most attention because of their appearance, but Cummings says, We get as many comments on the flavor as we do on the decorating. Women between 25 and 50 years old probably comprise the biggest share of the shops customers, he says.


Cummings was born in Boise and raised mostly in Spokane, graduating from Mead High School. He spent 12 years in California, working in quality-control jobs for electronics companies, but then decidedafter marrying and fathering two childrenthat it would be good to move back to Spokane.


He says he and his wife used revenues from the sale of a Christmas tree-mounted model train track setup that he invented, called Christmas Trim-a-Train, as seed money for their move here.


I wanted to start a business, and it just happened to be this one, he says. Were the 103rd store (in the Plano, Texas-based Cookies by Design chain), and now theres over 250.


He estimates he and his wife spent $125,000 to get the business started and says they have been expanding the stores cookie offerings ever since.