thread Re: Announcing the New Square Square Online Discussion Board in Online Store

Announcing the New Square Square Online Discussion Board

Tom — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 19:49:44 GMT

More and more sellers in our community are pressing on with Curbside Pickup and Local Delivery by opening up online stores for their business. With that in mind, we created the Square Online Discussion board — a space within our Seller Community where you can share your experiences, ask questions, and discuss all things related to your Square Online site.

If you're just getting started, check out our latest feature releases in our Product Updates section and have a look at some of our most viewed topics. If you don't see what you're looking for, feel free to start a new thread and we'll make sure you get the resources you need.

The Community is looking forward to hearing from you! Click reply below if you’d like to introduce yourself, share a link to your store, or let us know if you have any questions or suggestions!

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

sweetartist — Fri, 01 May 2020 01:03:30 GMT

Hi,. My husband and I own Sweet Arts Bakery in Geneseo, NY. We've used Square for 8 1/2 years. We're in a college town and have wanted to add an online ordering option for the past 5 years. With the shut down of the college, and no large gatherings, our income could have been drastically cut. However, my husband, a "stay at home" high school teacher, was able to quickly get the online site up and running, and our sales have been surprisingly good. One person said, The best thing about the pandemic is that Sweet Arts delivers!

We'd be happy to help with any practicalities, or things that we may have been able to tweak over the past 6 weeks. One thing we've found is that we use the modifiers for the flavors or scones, soup, etc, so it's easy to hide them when we sell out. If it's a variation, we have to track stock, which is next to impossible for a bakery.

One struggle we have, and I know Square is aware of it, is the delivery time selection. That would really help!

Best of luck, and we're looking forward to any new ideas and suggestions.

Ruth Ann and Brian Lewis

https://sweetartsbakeryny.square.site/

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

dabblrscre8ions — Fri, 01 May 2020 15:08:34 GMT

Hi! This is Sherry of The Dabbler's Creations in Virginia. @sweetartist -- It's so very kind of you to offer help to me and others setting up our new online stores. I, too, have been using Square to accept payments for many years, but after the old Square Marketplace went away, customers had trouble finding my page. Since most of my business is in-person sales paid by cash, I was processing fewer and fewer transactions through Square, until I eventually lost interest in maintaining the detailed catalog of my products and tracking inventory.

But with the COVID-19 situation forcing changes to the operation of the local farmers' market in which I participate, I've been online the past few days working on the new online store (https://thedabblerscreations.square.site) It still needs work, mainly better photos and a real logo, but for my first real website, I'm okay with it. The goal of creating the site was to offer 2 or 3 of my most popular items which shoppers of the farmers' market can pre-order and pick up. @sweetartist -- your tip about variations vs modifiers is good; I'll have to revisit my page to see if I should change my item set ups. The bigger challenge I faced last night was just getting the items to appear as available for purchase. I don't want "Shipping" as a fulfillment option at this time, but having it or "All" selected was the only way I could get that to happen initially. I kept playing around with the settings (until about 3 a.m.!!) and somehow finally got them on there with "Pick Up & Delivery" as the fulfillment method. I sure wish I knew how I did it though because I will be adding my other merchandise as time allows.

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

Evey — Fri, 01 May 2020 12:37:36 GMT

Hi I'm Evette with Jacksonville Cake Decorating Supplies out of Jacksonville, FL. I sell decorating supplies, for cakes, cookies, chocolates and more. I also teach cake decorating for all skill levels. We have suffer during this COVID 19 due to cancelling all my classes which is our main money maker. We also make speciality cakes and desserts for weddings and large events. Getting my store online has been a struggle. I love using the square, I've been a square customer since we opened in 2015. But the layout options online store are very limited and the shipping option is also very limited unless you are paying top dollar. My shop has been physically open during this ordeal, but as everyone else we had to reinvent ourselves to survive.

My you all stay safe and my your business flourish with success.

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

Donnie-M — Fri, 01 May 2020 15:26:48 GMT

Hi, I am Donnie and am the multi-location manager for a vending company and we currently operate 4 different restaurants that share some common menu items but have different branding/pricing based on location and favorites. We too are setting up our first square online store with weebly and finding ways to do things that can't be done until square adds the functionality. My biggest current request is the ability to have an online store for each of my brands and their domains.

Another feature mentioned that would be beneficial is the ability to adjust the expected pick up time. The ability to mark an order as in progress and then as completed does work well. We have made a note in our pickup instructions to look for the order complete message to know for sure that the customer's order is ready to be picked up.

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

manyhats — Fri, 01 May 2020 16:24:43 GMT

I'm at Ecoworks Creative Reuse Center and I'm slowly adding the online store function to our store. We've used square since our opening and have been trying to find a way to sell online with the local area only. We're doing curbside pickup At this time we're only offering specific items as part of the system and not the usual store inventory. I haven't gotten far enough into the process to figure out how to get only those specifics in the store, However, if this works well and we're closed even longer we may want to add some of our other items as well. I'm finding it hard to figure out a way to let someone do a mock shopping trip to determine what works. I've tried to do a preview but it doesn't seem to do what I need. I don't think there is an actual solution to this problem but it what came out as my fingers were moving on the keyboard. I hope I'll be able to come back with actual questions and a need for support. Thanks all.

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

aarontw — Fri, 01 May 2020 17:07:58 GMT

Hi @sweetartist, @manyhats, @Evey, @manyhats, & @Donnie-M,

Thanks so much for sharing the stories of your businesses and for giving some insight into your experience with the store. We love reading your stories and appreciate you taking the time to post them to the Community. Thank you for being here.

The teams working on Square Online Store have been putting in extra hours to roll out features as quickly as possible, and are checking for feedback on the Community.

Please do continue to share thoughts and questions.

Wishing the best as we navigate this difficult time,

Aaron

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

Donnie-M — Fri, 01 May 2020 17:42:51 GMT

What I did was publish the site to yourstorename.square.site and then go to that in a separate browser window and just act like a customer up until time to put in a credit card. I also tested it on my android phone to see how it looked (photos, modifiers, item types etc). This really helped me on what I needed to do to be customer friendly. The preview option is ok, but I like to see the live site.

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

manyhats — Sat, 02 May 2020 00:55:15 GMT

Thanks Donnie. I've been reluctant to go live for even a few minutes because it's not public eye ready yet. I'm a little paranoid that someone will find it before we're ready and I will have trouble unpublishing it. By the way, do I just send the link to the online store to customers? Maybe I will be brave.

Thanks again.

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

dabblrscre8ions — Sat, 02 May 2020 19:09:38 GMT

@manyhats A friend of mine who's had her own small business for a while reminded me to add my website address to my email signature. That way it'll go to existing customers as well as new, potential ones.

Also, in Weebly's online store editor, I found an "Unpublish" option for my site in the "General Settings" section under the "Website" category. It reads:

"Unpublish

Republish your site anytime to get it up & running again."

I assume this means we can open and close our sites as needed. So let the testing begin... 😁

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

dabblrscre8ions — Sat, 02 May 2020 21:52:10 GMT

Does anyone else have a headache from trying to set up the sales tax calculator for your store? If so, read on for solutions that might help you...

Because of Virginia's varied tax rates (https://www.tax.virginia.gov/sales-tax-rate-and-locality-code-lookup), it took me until today to figure out what customized settings to use so my online store won't overcharge my customers. Setting the rate in the Square app was easy-peasy; I just had to type the numbers in under the app's tax setting. But that info isn't something that syncs with the online store, and I couldn't simply use the "Automatically calculate taxes" option for two reasons.

First, the program has the wrong base rate set for Virginia (5% when it should be 4.3% for general merchandise statewide). Then, behind the scenes, it automatically added the 1% local tax based on the zipcode I gave as the pick up location, even though I didn't set a zipcode modifier. That means my test order was charged 6% sales tax when it should've been 5.3%. (I know, it's a difference of pennies, but it's bad business practice, plus a matter of conscience and principle.)

Changing the state rate to 5.3% and checking the "Don't charge local taxes" box was one option. However, as this is my first year collecting sales tax, I didn't know if I'd have to provide detailed tax collection records at some point so I went with editing the base rate to 4.3% and letting the system add the 1%. For now, it's working correctly.

Hopefully, this helps everyone else trying to figure out the tax set up part...

Re: Announcing New Square Online Store Discussion Board

raylab810 — Sun, 03 May 2020 18:21:41 GMT

hi everyone!

We serve brunch on weekends from 10-2pm and dinner after that. i can't figure out a way to allow times for each menu, so in the middle of brunch someone can order a burger and our kitchen isn't big enough to do both menus and then we have to call them back and disappoint them.

also is there a way to NOT allow people to pre order? someone will send in an order say at 7am for 6pm pick up, which would be fine if we were retail and could just package it up and set it aside. But restaurants need to make the items so they are delivered fresh and hot to the customers. the problem being, is that the customer usually picks a time that is right in the middle of our rush and our kitchen not only has to remember to start cooking the ticket but has to gage when to start cooking it to be ready at the specified time.

Re: Announcing New Square Online Store Discussion Board

Donnie-M — Mon, 04 May 2020 11:01:11 GMT

To limit order ahead go to online store --->>Settings ---->Pickup & Delivery ---> Go to the right and Edit Location ---> Edit Pickup Settings ----> And toggle off Scheduled Pickups

This should let them order only when you have your hours set for pickup available. I sometimes set these hours a little different than the store hours. If I open at 7AM the pickup window starts at 7:30 AM.

As to schedules for Menus I do not believe it is currently functional, you can hide items from your online store, what we did was put the tag on our breakfast items at 7-10AM and lunch Items Available 11-3pm etc. as the category name and made sure it was prominent on the order page. It is not ideal, but customers pick up on those things and it helps.

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

vhovar — Mon, 04 May 2020 13:33:28 GMT

@dabblrscre8ions, When I was first trying to setup my online store I resorted to unpublish/publish but now that I'm getting closer to opening the store I've just started to turn on and off the ability to shop. You may be aware of this setting but if not; under Setting/Checkout you will see the toggle to turn on and off ordering. I actually like this so customers who are searching for our site may happen on the site and can see that we are working on the online store. I did forget to turn it off a couple weeks ago and ended up with a drink order for 9:30 the next morning 😮 Well, my bad and since they had paid for it I went into the cafe and made their drinks and was at the door when they showed up. They were surprised to see that we were actually closed. I asked how they found the site and they said it came up in a google search. We are looking forward to turning things on next Monday and getting back to serving our customers!

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

vhovar — Mon, 04 May 2020 13:43:45 GMT

Another option you might consider: For our simple cup of coffee we have three variations, Regular, Large, and Refill. Of course, we aren't going to be able to offer Refill for our curbside or carry-out service. Rather than just removing this option and affecting the in-house POS I set the Refill variation to track stock and set it to "0". Now when you select that on the online store it displays "Sold Out" and won't allow that variation to be ordered. This does not seem to prevent it being ordered in-house on the POS.

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

sweetartist — Mon, 04 May 2020 18:07:04 GMT

From the square dashboard go into the item library (Not the item library when editing your online store). Open your item to edit it, go to the variation you want to hide and go into "manage stock" then make it unavailable at that location. You won't get the "Sold out" message anymore and it won't show up as an option in the pull down menu.

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

vhovar — Mon, 04 May 2020 19:58:18 GMT

Thank you for that hint. I do see, however, that this also removes the variant from the POS, which is what I didn't want to happen. We still need the ability to allow customers to get a "refill" if they are on premises and ordering through the POS. Now, maybe this is an error as I am surprised that I can still add the zero stock variant to my receipt at the POS.

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

RLiss — Tue, 05 May 2020 00:40:27 GMT

Hi guys,

I'm glad this thread has started. I own a small restaurant in Baltimore and had been using square's POS with great success. When we were forced to close in March I immediately set up a square commerce site. https://le-comptoir-du-vin-online-shop.square.site/ We are lucky that Maryland is letting us sell wine to go so now we are half bottle shop half pantry with a limited carryout menu. So far the shop has been very successful.

While set up was mostly intuitive I have come across a few issues and would love any suggestions:

1. The weebly for square app often does not show the pick up time a customer has added and acts like the order is being shipped when I go to complete it even though it's for pick up. Anyone else experience similar issues with the app?

2. I really want to get rid of the pick up immediately option and force customers to choose pick up times. Many of our customers don't see the option to choose a different pick up time and its very stressful having so many people coming at once when we are trying to keep people safe.

3. Since we are a small operation and not trying to add third party delivery I was hoping to set up delivery times for after our shop hours. Unfortunately pick up and delivery times have to be at congruent times. Does anyone know if there is a work around or if this will change in the future?

4. We sell food and alcohol, but I am unable to set up different tax codes based on product. Is there a good work around? I currently have tax included, but I would like to change this.

5. This past week we had a lot of customers complain that the square code to access their saved info weren't working. I also experienced this trying to buy a coffee at another shop in Baltimore so it seemed like a larger problem beyond my shop. Anyone else experience this.

Thanks everyone!

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

sayra — Tue, 05 May 2020 22:27:50 GMT

Hello@RLiss-

Your website is cool! Wish I was in your city to order a Funky Bunch Wine Package. When you set up your online store taxes, did you do this in your Square Online Store or your Square Account (POS), under taxes? As of today pick up and delivery times are congruent and there is no way to separate the two. We continue to gather feedback on this feature to better our Pickup & Delivery settings

Regarding your Square code, I'm not clear on what code you mean. What code are your providing your customers to save their information?

Re: Announcing the New Square Online Store Discussion Board

RLiss — Tue, 05 May 2020 22:41:57 GMT

Hi @sayra thanks for responding. When I add each new menu item for my online store on my dashboard it gives me the option to choose my tax code (6% or 9%), but when I upload the items to my square store I can only choose one tax code.

Having pick up and delivery times that could differ would be huge for us.

The square pay verification code is a code square will send you via sms when you put in your email at check out to verify your identity. Then all of your payment information is automatically added and it makes check out easier for customers that order every week. Last week a lot of our customers said the code square would send them wasn't working at checkout, but this seems to have been resolved.

Thanks for your help.