Mackenzie Limited Review: Dessert Delivery

Mackenzie Limited got its start in 1988 as a mail-order provider of fine foods from the British Isles and Scotland. Its flagship product is Scottish Smoked Salmon, but you'll also find more than 400 other gourmet treats to choose from, like appetizers, breakfast options, and, of course, desserts.

Around 100 dessert choices

You'll have about 100 desserts to consider here, from cakes and pies to chocolate and cookies. It's a good idea to use the category dropdown if you have a specific type of treat in mind; otherwise, you'll spend a chunk of time browsing.

Highest-end desserts are samplers for $150

How about pricing? The most expensive option at the time of our review was Mackenzie Limited's Nordic Gingerbread Cookie Village for $389.95 (!). Fortunately, that's a big price jump up from the other high-end desserts here, which tend to be around $150 for a sampler - of best-sellers, Southern pies, or Chesapeake classics.

Affordable treats to consider

Plus, there's tons of sweets under $100 too. We were surprised to see Ted Lasso ice cream and some Halloween clearance items starting at $24.95, a peanut butter pie for under $30, and a Harry Potter chocolate set for under $40. As we mentioned, you may want to use the categories to make it a little easier to find what you have in mind; those include cakes, pies, cookies, ice cream, chocolate, individual treats, and thaw-and-serve options.

Delivery will cost you at least $18.95

Don't forget to factor in shipping costs when determining how much your dessert order will cost here. You'll be charged a minimum of $18.95 for standard, $27.90 for expedited, and $43.90 for overnight - and that's just if your order is $80 or less. Once your order reaches $250, you can expect the delivery cost to be 16% of your total.

No refunds on shipping, period

Another reason that matters is because Mackenzie Limited's satisfaction guarantee does not include a refund of shipping charges. While you can reach out to their customer service team if your dessert doesn't arrive in good condition and expect that they'll "discuss how [to] best resolve the issue", that may or may not include a refund of your purchase price, minus delivery fees.

Reputation fails to impress

This dessert shop doesn't have a perfect reputation with the Better Business Bureau, where it only earns a "B" grade. That's from having 17 complaints in three years, plus a disappointing review average there of just 1.98 stars across 50+ ratings. It was only when we started poking into some of Mackenzie Limited's responses to complaints that we learned this truth: this is essentially a dessert dropshipper as part of Chesapeake Fine Food Group LLC. As one of their reps put it when giving a sorry-not-sorry to a customer complaint, "we do not have a brick and mortar establishment; items featured on our website and in our catalogs could be seen with other vendors and/or grocery outlets".

Still has quite a few loyal repeat customers

Then again, Mackenzie Limited does have some loyal customers who return year after year to place orders here, especially for gift-giving. You'll see that in the product reviews: not every dessert has customer ratings, but some treats like the Molten Chocolate Cakes have impressive feedback (4.71 stars out of more than 200 reviews, for example). And, those shoppers don't seem to mind that there's no in-house bakery here: wherever the company is sourcing the desserts, it's all good to them.

Good as a backup dessert option

All things considered, Mackenzie Limited comes in a bit below average among the dessert retailers on our list. They come up short in terms of reputation and customer satisfaction, but we can't overlook the 35+ year history and the solid ratings for many of the treats that they sell. We'd still recommend looking at the higher-ranked sweet shops in our evaluation first, keeping Mackenzie Limited as a "maybe" if you don't find what you need somewhere else.

Learn More  ➜

On the Mackenzie Limited website