thread Re: Can I discount an entire category? in Archived Discussions (Read Only)

Can I discount an entire category?

EmmettsMeats — Tue, 24 May 2016 17:40:32 GMT

We're having a sale this weekend for Memorial Day and we wanted to run a discount on all of our sausages. (butcher shop) I wanted to see if it was possible to discount the entire "sausage" category so that the discount would be applied automatically, and not have to apply it to each individual item at checkout.

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

Kelly — Wed, 25 May 2016 18:24:39 GMT

Being able to adjust items by category, i.e. adding a discount, isn't a function available at this moment but it's an interesting suggestion! I absolutely see how that would cut down on time during a busy holiday weekend!

I'll share that with our Product Liaison team but at the moment, your cashier will need to add the discount to each sale.

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

MsGoody2Shoes — Mon, 30 May 2016 12:54:54 GMT

Yes! This would be great for my shoe store as well! I could run a sale on the boots since it's summertime. I can manually apply the discount if a person is in front of me, but the discount can not be applied to online sales.

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

Kelly — Tue, 31 May 2016 19:01:07 GMT

You can create discounts for your Online Store! Though they won't be specific for an category or item, they will apply to the whole sale. Promo codes (online store discounts) can be shared with your customers so they can take advantage of online sales!

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

J_Mizza — Wed, 06 Jul 2016 01:49:34 GMT

That's great Kelly, but can the promo codes in the online store be applicable to some items but not others. Different items for sale have different margins, so I can't afford to give a straight 10% discount on everything but would like to offer it on some items. Can this be done?

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

sciabica1936 — Tue, 09 Aug 2016 00:02:57 GMT

This is HUGE for me as well. I've been suggesting a more advanced discount system for years.

WE NEED a system that will allow automatic discounts (no user input necessary) for set periods of time, for specific categories and products, for specific employees/devices. It would also be nice to offer BOGO (buy one get one) offers.

This is actually a really basic feature that is included with every e-commerce software I can think of.

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

brju2013 — Tue, 09 Aug 2016 13:33:57 GMT

Totally need auto-discounts as well (i.e. BOGO). It's such a basic feature, I am surprised it's not a feature for square already. I don't want to give promo codes because they could use it on anything instead of just certain items, which is not helpful at all.

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

Tom — Wed, 10 Aug 2016 20:37:44 GMT

Thank you for taking the time to share this additional insight! While I don't have access to a specific timeline for more discount features, rest assured that I'm sharing your experience with our product liaison team. Please don't hesitate to chime in with any other questions.

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

hopsvine — Mon, 03 Oct 2016 14:31:09 GMT

Disappointed to hear that you are not able to set up a discount that applies to only 1 product category. When you are busy, applying the discount to each line item in a category is time consuming. I own a beer, wine and liquor shop - we offer a 10% discount on the purchase of a case of wine, if a customer purchases a case of wine (12+ bottles) and they also purchase a bottle of vodka and a 6 pack of beer - we have to hit case dicount on each individual bottle of wine to avoid the discount from being applied to the beer & vodka. Would really like to be able to set up more specific discounts - hope this feature will be added soon as we roll into our busiest season!

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

sciabica1936 — Mon, 03 Oct 2016 15:14:51 GMT

This is a perfect example of why we need Advanced Discounts. In fact, the discount should be automatic. If your employees are required to press a button to add the discount, eventually an error will occur (wrong button pressed or no discount at all) and a customer will be upset. You should be able to set up an "IF, THEN" Rule that looks somehting like this:

- 12 or more bottles from a list of categories/products are added to the sale.

THEN

- A 10% Discount is automaticaly applied, only to a list of selected categories/products.

Can anyone else comment here with an "IF, THEN" Rule they'd LOVE to have on Square Register?

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

Sean — Wed, 05 Oct 2016 17:28:35 GMT

@hopsvine @sciabica1936 - Thanks for sharing an example. I'll be sure to pass along the feedback to our product liaison team.

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

sciabica1936 — Wed, 05 Oct 2016 22:14:28 GMT

I'd love to have a discount for "Black Friday". We manufacture olive oil, but carry lots of products in our gift shop. I will be discounting ONLY our olive oil the day after Thanksgiving.

- Date is 11/25/16

- Product Category is Olive Oil

THEN

- Discount is 20%

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

kysoc — Wed, 19 Oct 2016 17:07:17 GMT

Thank you all so much for bringing this up. We are updating our game designs and I wanted to be able to offer our local fire and police a promo code to purchase the old design at 40% off. I was really surprised I couldn't specify the discount to any one item as I can't afford to give 40% off of everything I sell. I love using square for both my in person and online needs. I love the dashboard, the ease of use, the reports, but there has to be MUCH more flexibility on the online discount options. BOGO, BOGO1/2OFF, individual product discounts, spend $100 get ____ free, all of these need to be options for us to be keeping up with retailers on other sites. I can offer all of these deals in person all day long and they sell like hotcakes but then people jump on our online store and since nothing can be marked down unless everything can be marked down we can't afford to mark any of it and our sales drop to almost nothing.

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

sciabica1936 — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 18:05:37 GMT

I'm at an impasse. I've been using ERPLY in my gift shop for years, but one of my credit card readers recently died. Instead of replacing it, I REALLY want to switch to Square. However, we have Black Friday coming up - if we can not automatically apply the 15% discount we'll offer for that day, I can not switch.

If my employees are required to tap a "discount button" for each sale (or item), they will inevitably forget, or tap the wrong button and we'll have upset customers and a mess of extra work.

FYI we expect to be absolutely slammed on Black Friday (and Saturday) and will be using at least 3 registers non-stop.

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

Sean — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 19:07:54 GMT

@sciabica1936 - This is definitely a popular feature request, but unfortunately I can't offer any sort of timeframe for this functionality. You can add the discount to the items grid so it's front and center. I'll be sure to update this thread if anything changes in the future.

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

J_Mizza — Sat, 26 Nov 2016 19:18:27 GMT

A quick solution on this could be to allow store owners to enter a negative amount (e.g. -$20) in the modifier section and then apply that to the particular items they want to discount. You guys really need a solution for this or store owners (like all the people requesting it here) may be forced to move on to other platforms that provide these types of common sense tools. Thanks

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

J_Mizza — Sat, 26 Nov 2016 19:20:24 GMT

...especially with Cyber Monday upon us and the holiday sales season in full swing.

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

SwapShopRetail — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 14:41:55 GMT

I own a small Thrift Shop (Buy-Sell-Trade-Consign). As you can imagine our inventory is well over 1,000 items so we sell items by category. We opened up shop in June of this year and now have hundreds of customers coming in. We are offering a 50% off sale store wide, which is great because the square app can handle the discount, but we will be having a sale for specific categories (Coats, Sweaters, and Blankets) for 20% off and the square is not so friendly when it comes to doing this, which just blows my mind to say the least. It is frustrating to have to apply the discount manually to each item individually. My biggest problem is training our employees how to do this and let's just say we had several 10% off the entire purchase sales because they forgot how to ring it up this way. This can't be just a problem with the people commenting on this post. This was brought up several months ago and no update has been released with this feature? So I'm confused. If you bring it to their attention, do they not take it seriously or does it take months to get it added? What can we do in order to get these things changed? I spoke to someone at square about having the ability to keep track of consignment items back in July and haven't heard back or seen any changes there either and I know many business owners who use square and need this feature. They all use alternate software for this, which I am unable to afford to do. If this isn't going to be a feature that's added, please let me know or give us a way to speak to the right people to voice our opinions, after all we are the people who use this on a daily basis.

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

sciabica1936 — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 19:39:21 GMT

I hear ya!

It is truly baffling that there is no auto discount feature. It seems to simple and EVERYONE would use it!

IN FACT, the reward system already has these features! You can offer a % discount on a single item, or a category when a customer reaches their reward. Why can't the same code just be used for discounts? Like this:

If you're afraid the discount feature will cannibalize the reward system, and it's about the $25 per month per location, just add a "reward" that is not based on stars, but based on shopping during a specific time period.

On the consignment issue, that may be something for more of a niche of Square users - but based on past feature additions, I would not be suprised if that comes before auto discounts.

Re: Can I discount an entire category?

SwapShopRetail — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 18:31:31 GMT

Exactly! It's not like it's a feature that couldn't be added fairly quickly when the code is already built into the software, just in a different location of the paid feature. It's an item that should already be installed as many businesses offer these types of sales. As far as the consignment side, I've had to build my own spreadsheet to take care of this and build a system around the spreadsheet to make what we do work, but it has taken me months to accomplish. If my staff forgets how to add the sale items individually to include the sale items, the customer has to do 2 separate transactions (which isn't always pleasant for them to do) or the staff accidentally adds it to the entire purchase (which then is not pleasant for me to deal with as I'm losing money). The struggle is real