thread Re: Time based categories and customer pickup time selection not working as expected in Online Store

Time based categories and customer pickup time selection not working as expected

fsanatgar — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 17:15:44 GMT

I am having problems getting the time-based categories and customer pickup time selection working properly on my Square Online ordering site. Some info about my current configuration is below:

Here is the link to the site experiencing the issue: https://aji-ten-japanese-restaurant.square.site/

I have two categories of menu items that each have a different lunch and dinner price, I want to restrict the online ordering of items from each price category to the appropriate times.

Here is how the categories have their time set up:

The filtering of available items based on the time the customer selects for pickup is behaving oddly. Below are some example issues.

Issue 1:

Why for an order today for pickup at at 5:30 PM are the two Dinner menu categories considered not available, when they display an availability time of 5 to 9 PM?

Issue 2:

When the fulfillment time starts at 5 PM today and tomorrow, why can I not place an order for today at 5 PM (5:30 PM is earliest), while I can place an order for tomorrow at 5 PM?

Issue 3:

For an order to be placed for 12 PM pickup tomorrow at 12, why are neither of the Lunch menu categories available?

As shown above in this post, the two Lunch categories have an availability time starting from 11:30 AM. Why does the website say that they are available starting at 12:30 PM?

Any help with these current issues would be greatly appreciated. I am sure there will be more as I make further adjustments...

Re: Time based categories and customer pickup time selection not working as expected

BernadetteA — Sun, 06 Feb 2022 02:12:41 GMT

Hi @fsanatgar 👋 Welcome to the Seller Community

I believe the issue with the first 2 scenarios has to do with your prep time settings under Fulfillment > Pickup > Edit Location > Order Timing

You have a 30 minute prep time set, so if your business hours are 5-9, the earliest available pickup would be 5:30.

The third issue should follow the same logic, but I'm going to need to take a closer look into this to confirm.

I know you posted this awhile ago, so I just want to make sure you haven't made any changes to your store settings or category time since then? Thanks in advance for your continued patience! I'll follow up with this thread as soon as possible. 😊

Re: Time based categories and customer pickup time selection not working as expected

fsanatgar — Sun, 06 Feb 2022 16:19:22 GMT

Hello @BernadetteA,

No changes have been made since this was posted.

Thanks for looking into this!

Re: Time based categories and customer pickup time selection not working as expected

BernadetteA — Sun, 06 Feb 2022 21:20:41 GMT

Thanks for your patience, @fsanatgar

Okay, the third scenario is indeed following the same rules as the first two scenarios.

Your time-based category settings determine when the category items will show on the website. Actual order availability will be determined by both your store open hours, and the prep time that is setup under Fulfillment > Pickup > Edit Location > Order Timing

In Sundays example, your store is open 12pm-9pm. The system assumes that that is when you or your workers will be available to start prepping the food. Since you prep time is set for 30 minutes, the first available pickup time for the lunch time-based category would be 12:30pm.

I hope my explanation made sense. Please let us know if you still have more questions. 😊

Re: Time based categories and customer pickup time selection not working as expected

fsanatgar — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 01:48:40 GMT

Hello again @BernadetteA,

To make this less confusing, I set the fulfillment hours to match the item categories:

I am still confused about the wording you used above.

I have now set the fulfillment hours to begin at 11:30 as shown above. If the prep time is 30 minutes, why am I allowed to place an order for 11:30 AM?

Wouldn't the earliest possible pickup time be 12PM?

Another issue is that I still do not understand is why when I try to place an order for Thursday (tomorrow) at 12PM, why the lunch categories are considered not available, stating that it will be available at 12:30PM? Why is this the case? The fulfillment hours and the item availability hours are both set to 11:30PM.

Wouldn't both lunch categories be available for pickup at 12PM if the availability & fulfillment both start at 11:30AM and the prep time is 30 minutes?

Even more baffling is the fact that when I change the pickup time to 12:15PM, the lunch categories are now considered available for pickup from 12PM!

Why are the lunch categories not available until 12:30PM when a 12PM pickup time is selected, but when you set the pickup time just 15 minutes later to 12:15PM, are the lunch categories suddenly available again at 12PM?

Re: Time based categories and customer pickup time selection not working as expected

BernadetteA — Sun, 13 Feb 2022 00:09:43 GMT

My apologies for missing your response!

Yes, something definitely doesn't sound right about this. 🤔 Have you had a chance to reach out to the support team? I think this would be the best route to go so that a rep can escalate to the advanced support team. They'll be able to work with the engineers in case this turns out to be a one-off bug affecting your site.

Please make sure you are logged into your account so that all of the support team options show when clicking the aforementioned link.

I'll also do some more digging on my end to see if there's a setting we may have overlooked. 🤞

Re: Time based categories and customer pickup time selection not working as expected

fsanatgar — Sun, 13 Feb 2022 18:10:30 GMT

Hello @BernadetteA,

I will contact the support team and send them the link to this thread. Hopefully they can figure out what the issue is on the backend.

Thank you for your support so far!