thread Re: Scheduling pick up orders? in Archived Discussions (Read Only)

Scheduling pick up orders?

Lizzyspizza — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 18:26:02 GMT

Does anyone know how to use the Square Appointments feature to allow customers to schedule pick up times? it seems to be set up more for appointment START times - i.e. I select 5 pm and that is my booked appointment start time. However, I am in the food industry and need to allow customers to choose when they want the order to be completed (not started).

Re: Scheduling pick up orders?

RumiPersianCafe — Wed, 22 Apr 2020 23:34:43 GMT

We are a restaurant too and have been able to use Square Online for people to order and schedule their pick-up times (also curbside pick-up option). No need for Square Appointments. It can be a bit confusing because within the cart it says Location and time after (next available dependent upon you hours of operation and time for preparation - set at the store or item level) but you can't actually choose the time and day until you are in the checkout process after the email/address info is entered. Delivery order, if enabled can still not be set to anything but next available based on the same 2 criteria. Hope that helps. The Square site by the way was super easy to set up and implement and has saved our business during this time, still difficult but up and running none the less.

Re: Scheduling pick up orders?

pessosices — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 01:02:57 GMT

Hey @Lizzyspizza

I definitely agree with @RumiPersianCafe

We are an Ice Cream Shop and we use the Square Online store for Pickup Orders and it works amazingly well! Right now we're doing Online Orders Only, and it's been pretty flawless!

Re: Scheduling pick up orders?

Lizzyspizza — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 02:56:52 GMT

Thanks to you and @RumiPersianCafe for your responses. I did start looking at this a bit. I will have to dig in a little further. So how do I add the time it takes to prepare each item? I assume there has to be a way to do that so it knows how much time to block off before the pickup time

Re: Scheduling pick up orders?

pessosices — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 02:59:55 GMT

@Lizzyspizza

Awesome! Let us know if we can help in any way!

Theres a field for “prep time” and it works perfectly! And if you have orders scheduled in advance, you can set it to automatically print the order tickets in advance by your prep time.

example: if your prep time is 30 minutes and at 2 pm someone orders for 8 pm, the ticket will print at 7:30.

If at 2 pm someone puts in an order for ASAP it will tell them the order will be ready in 30 minutes at 2:30 pm, and it will print the ticket immediately.

Re: Scheduling pick up orders?

RumiPersianCafe — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 03:03:30 GMT

You can set a default prep time for the entire shop (in online store-settings- pick up and delivery- edit location) beyond that you can give each item in your item list from the online store a prep time either default for store or individual.

Re: Scheduling pick up orders?

Joe — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 13:38:33 GMT

Thanks for stepping in to assist, @RumiPersianCafe! We appreciate it 😎🙏

Re: Scheduling pick up orders?

Lizzyspizza — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 19:31:08 GMT

follow up question for you - I did go and set up the prep times for each item (5 minutes each). So if someone comes to the online store and orders 3 items, the total prep time would be 15 minutes then? Or another way to look at it, if I open at 5pm the first available time for this customer would be 5:15pm?

i tried to do some testing but it doesn't look like this is working. It seems that no matter how many items I add to my cart, it is only giving me a total prep time of 5 minutes.

Re: Scheduling pick up orders?

RumiPersianCafe — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 19:52:09 GMT

Yeah unfortunately (for some businesses) it is not cumulative. There is a way to set a large order threshold (advanced settings on the pickup & delivery screen) if that helps. I don't know if this would apply to your situation but consider if your average order is 3 items that take 5 minutes each setting the default for the whole store as 15 minutes and then setting a large order threshold for anything more than 3 items. Gives you a cushion on some orders but overdelivering on others, remember your customers can be texted if they choose to know when order is ready and you can mark order ready is you beat the default time.

Re: Scheduling pick up orders?

Lizzyspizza — Mon, 27 Apr 2020 16:25:44 GMT

Hi Joe. How does the online store determine availability? Is it using my connected calendar? or just the hours of operation? Also, after someone places an order online, will that time slot no longer be available for the next person?

Re: Scheduling pick up orders?

Joe — Tue, 28 Apr 2020 11:49:28 GMT

Hi there, @Lizzyspizza - thanks for reaching out again!

You can set your Online Store pickup window availability here. These online store pickup times are separate from booking times through Square Appointments, which will block off the particular timeslot once an time is booked.

I hope this helps!

Re: Scheduling pick up orders?

TGath — Fri, 01 May 2020 14:38:45 GMT

Question: When does a 'scheduled order' hit the order queue? ...when it is ordered, or when it is about to be picked up? We are afraid if we turn on the ability to schedule orders we will lose them in the queue.....

how to let customers pick the date for their order?

lacherieseattle — Mon, 04 May 2020 07:20:14 GMT

I would like to let people choose date for their order among three business days of the week. Right now it throws them to the next available date which is two business days from now.

thanks!

@Chad

Re: how to let customers pick the date for their order?

isabelle — Tue, 05 May 2020 18:13:16 GMT

Hey @lacherieseattle-

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community.

You have two options here. You can either allow your custoemrs to schedule a pick up, which will be the next available business day:

Or you can set it up so that your orders and items have a specific prep time:

These prep times can range from a couple of hours, to days or weeks. Totally up to you. I moved your post over to this thread for further insight. If you have any additional questions, please take a look at this article.

Re: Scheduling pick up orders?

nika — Tue, 05 May 2020 20:38:21 GMT

@TGath Any time a customer schedules an order, it will be sent your way ASAP!

Re: how to let customers pick the date for their order?

lacherieseattle — Tue, 05 May 2020 21:20:05 GMT

It doesn’t give customers in option upon checkout to pick the day. It automatically schedules the order to the day when it can be technically ready, but they need it the next day for example.

Pickup Time ASAP vs Scheduling

empanadamama — Wed, 06 May 2020 19:56:40 GMT

We absolutely love that we can accept orders ahead of time, but we find that most people do not understand that the order is available ASAP unless they select otherwise on the 2nd checkout screen.

We have had a lot of phone calls from customers asking how to place an order for a different time/date and we have to explain how to go through the checkout process and to ignore the time it tells them before they check out.

Sometimes, we have people call and ask when their order is ready because when they ordered, it "didn't tell them."

I do think a lot of it would be avoided if people read the fine print, but the reality of it is that pickup time should be selected before they checkout, and it shouldn't automatically pick the soonest time available. In fact, I'd prefer to not have an ASAP option, and have them always have to select a time so they understand that's when their pickup order is ready.

Re: Pickup Time ASAP vs Scheduling

Kassi_ — Thu, 07 May 2020 22:05:35 GMT

Hey there, @empanadamama -

I moved your post to a thread with helpful tricks! Check out Joe's helpful answer for setting scheduled pick-up times.

Also, we just launched Order Staggering too. You may limit the number of orders that can be picked up or delivered at the same time so business doesn’t get overwhelming. When the system hits the maximum number of orders you can take every 15 minutes, then we will extend your prep time in 5 minute increments to sequence out those orders. To set this up, follow the steps below:

Log in to your Online Store dashboard > Settings > Pickup & Delivery.
Select a location > edit the Hours.
Toggle on “Space out pickup & delivery orders”.
Set the preferred number of orders for every 15 minutes.
Select Save.

Thank you!

Re: Pickup Time ASAP vs Scheduling

empanadamama — Fri, 08 May 2020 03:38:30 GMT

Hi Kassi! Yes, I saw that feature first thing this morning and that’s exactly what we were looking for. Thanks so much!

Problem with pickup times not matching inputted store/pickup/prep times

AGreekRest — Wed, 13 May 2020 14:40:23 GMT

What am I doing wrong?!! I have set my business hours to start at 3pm. I've set our pickup times to start at 4pm. The store hours clearly show 3pm on our website, and the 4pm is definitely marked as our first pickup time. I've noted a 45 minute prep time. When a customers tries to place an order at 12noon for a same day pickup, logically their first time slot for pickup availability should be 4pm but it is only showing availability starting at 4:45pm. Why? What am I doing wrong?? Any help would be truly appreciated.