thread Re: Store Allows Sales After An Item's Quantity Is Depleted (And It's Driving Me Crazy) in Orders, Menu Items, Catalog & Fulfilment

Store Allows Sales After An Item's Quantity Is Depleted (And It's Driving Me Crazy)

CapeAnnCinema — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 13:17:52 GMT

We use Square as a POS system for our small cinema. The problem I'm having is that in our smallest room, which seats only 15 people, advance sales often combine with walk-up sales, with the total being in excess of the quantity on-hand. Does anyone have a solution to this?

Re: Store Allows Sales After An Item's Quantity Is Depleted (And It's Driving Me Crazy)

EJ_ — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 00:53:51 GMT

Hi @CapeAnnCinema

There isn't a way to disable the selling of out of stock items, but I can see how that would help for your business model.

There might be a few workarounds posted by fellow sellers running into the same issue in this existing thread. Check it out when you get a chance:

Selling an out of stock item

Re: Store Allows Sales After An Item's Quantity Is Depleted (And It's Driving Me Crazy)

CapeAnnCinema — Mon, 28 Jan 2019 01:25:42 GMT

Is there another Square product with this feature, like Square For Retail?

Re: Store Allows Sales After An Item's Quantity Is Depleted (And It's Driving Me Crazy)

EJ_ — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 14:19:56 GMT

@CapeAnnCinema Square for Retail also allows for the sale of an item that is out of stock or sold out.

It doesn't quite relate to your business specifically, but the reason behind this is that we don't want to block you or cause you to miss a sale in case you haven't had a chance to update the stock in real time.

Re: Store Allows Sales After An Item's Quantity Is Depleted (And It's Driving Me Crazy)

Feedback2016 — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 18:41:12 GMT

@CapeAnnCinema Manually place a 0 in the "in stock" box and this will disable the item for sale. I can see how this would be extreamly frustrating especially if you have a lot of items and stock changes. Luckily, I do not.

Most likely another tripfall square has put in place to get us to spend more money with one of their third part venders.

Re: Store Allows Sales After An Item's Quantity Is Depleted (And It's Driving Me Crazy)

Feedback2016 — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 18:49:11 GMT

@CapeAnnCinema I would like to offer some advise for your set-up. I would create two store items. 1 for your online sales and 1 for your instore sales and simply disable the online sales one or two hours prior to showtime. You can place a disclaimer; "online sales not allowed less than one hour prior to showtime" or "Online sales are not available at this time, please contact our ticket booth for more information"

I think this would help you greatly. It is a simple push of a button and will not disable your ticket booth sales.