thread Re: Separate POS and Online inventories? in Payments Troubleshooting

Separate POS and Online inventories?

akramer — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 19:01:50 GMT

I can't be the only one running into this issue but I'm not able to find an answer.

I have used Square for POS transactions for my in-person art shows for several years; lots of customer data collected there, very valuable info, don't want to lose that. I've recently decided to start selling online as well but only occasionally -- like having two-week pop-up shops (though it may become more often if it's successful). I established a simple online presence with Square, with the intention that I can easily put select products online when I want to do that as they're already in my Square POS and all the data is there.

The challenge is that I don't want to put ALL my items in my online store; only select items. (Basically only things I can make multiples of and fairly quickly, not the OOAK and super-exclusive items). In short, I want to have a my online store be a subset of my full Square inventory, and I want the ability to easily turn the online store on and off. I don't see how to do this. If I make items 'invisible' for the online environment, then they don't show up in my POS either for the in-person show events.

Can anyone offer a solution to this challenge?

Re: Separate POS and Online inventories?

BFTBrickStudio — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 13:53:02 GMT

You can mark each item individually to be visible, hidden or unavailable under the "Where's it Sold" section of the product page. You can set the default visibility of new items to hidden in the item default settings.

Re: Separate POS and Online inventories?

Amyeichlerart — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 13:53:45 GMT

Hi! Fellow artist here using Square exactly like you (though I’ve had a full online store for a bit). Any items you don’t want showing up online can be marked “unavailable” and will still show up on your POS at in person art events. I just double checked mine to be sure it hadn’t changed. It’s always a gamble with these updates, but I’m happy to say that still works as planned.

Re: Separate POS and Online inventories?

akramer — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 14:15:37 GMT

AH! Ok, so "unavailable" removes it from the online listing entirely? But you can still see it in your POS in order to sell it at in-person events. BRILLIANT! Just the answer I needed -- thank you so much.

Of course I always want to see updates to Square and this is a great one, but *sheesh* it would be kinda great if some explanation were provided of how this is helpful to us out here in the wild. Honestly I probably burned through more than two hours on the Square site looking for a solution. Kept getting answers like "you can mark each item individually to be visible, hidden or unavailable" -- well, duh, but what is the result/benefit of choosing any one of these options? You provided the answer. YAY!

Re: Separate POS and Online inventories?

SakredJoiArt — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 18:22:32 GMT

Hello Akramer,

If you make the product unavailable, it should still show up on the POS at your shows. I did that this past weekend for a vendor show and could see all my products. Hope this helps.

Re: Separate POS and Online inventories?

Candlestore — Sat, 23 Nov 2024 01:50:32 GMT

@akramer ;

You may want to Export your Square Items Catalog as a CSV, to mark each item individually to be visible, hidden or unavailable quicker than using the Square Dashboard. Also if you Create a Category of so Quick Made Items and have all your items that you want available online and Offline you can sort the Spreadsheet by that category or filter to export only that category to speed this process up.

Re: Separate POS and Online inventories?

Amyeichlerart — Mon, 25 Nov 2024 19:07:17 GMT

Happy to help! Think of "visible" as the ones you plan to sell online, "hidden" as the ones you'd like to sell online but only through exclusive links (they won't show up in searches in your online store but will be purchasable if you add them to a page... I use this for "early access" to art or workshop tickets for my email subscribers and send them that specific page link), and then "unavailable" will not show up online at all. None of these options will affect your inventory list on your POS. If you want to remove it from your POS list, archive or delete it. This is how it currently all works for me 🙂