thread Re: Is there a way to set up automatic discounts, such as for happy hours? in Archived Discussions (Read Only)

Is there a way to set up automatic discounts, such as for happy hours?

PRM17 — Fri, 21 Jul 2017 17:48:17 GMT

Is there a way to set up automatic discounts such as for happy hours that will be applied automatically during a set time frame or under any other conditions? Thanks.

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

Sean — Wed, 11 May 2016 22:14:02 GMT

This sounds like an awesome feature that would save an extra step for sellers like yourself!

While this isn't something that we currently have set up, I'm definitely going to share your thoughts with our product liaison team! Thanks for the post.

Cheers! 🍻

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

CoffeeDude — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 14:54:29 GMT

We have two stores running square as the pos and can't find this feature anywhere. We assumed it existed but mabye that's why we have been unable to find such a button?

Sean, if you have the ability to push this rather simple (but desparetly needed) button/freature through, it would be greatly appreciated and would make your product all the more competitive against alternative POS solutions.

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

Sean — Sun, 24 Jul 2016 20:19:30 GMT

@CoffeeDude - While I'm more than happy to share your feedback, I can't offer any sort of promise around development of this feature. I can however assure you that our product teams do love hearing what features would help our sellers.

Thanks for taking the time to post!

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

ctkach — Wed, 17 Aug 2016 21:58:22 GMT

Can I add on to this thread?

It would be very helpful to be able to apply a dollar-based discount to a single item. While the current functionality of being able to apply percentage discounts to a single item is nice, it doesn't solve all the problems. Particularly around dollar off specials, etc. I'm not sure why the dollar-based discounts were specifically excluded from this functionality as it seems like a no brainer given that the base functionality is already there.

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

Tom — Sat, 20 Aug 2016 20:47:30 GMT

Hey @ctkach, thanks for sharing your point! I'll be sure your experience gets over to our product liaison team as well. In the meantime, thank you for your patience and I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

sciabica1936 — Tue, 23 Aug 2016 16:24:07 GMT

For years I've been asking for a discount feature that can apply automatically during a designated period of time (and to specific items/categories). Don't hold your breath.

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

Sean — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 18:56:34 GMT

@sciabica1936 - Appreciate you taking the time to share your feedback. We'll definitely continue to funnel your feedback to our product folks. Thanks!

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

sciabica1936 — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 19:09:59 GMT

Thanks. FYI, I have a big sale tomorrow from 11am to 4pm, only on certain items. My workaround is to export my products, change the price and then import them back. Once the sale is over, I will re-import the original CSV.

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

sciabica1936 — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 00:15:09 GMT

Well... that was a fail. Importing my items worked for the price adjustment, but for some reason "broke" my UPC barcode scanning. After importing, I checked and the codes were still entered correctly, but they wouldn't work when we opened the doors. It would pop up with "SKU not found". I had to re-scan each item while we were slammed with customers. It was a nightmare.

It was really my fault. I should have tested. I think part of the problem is that my UPC starts with a zero, so spreadsheet programs (like excel) like to drop the leading zero. I checked to make sure the zero was still there in Square, and it was, but for some reason wouldn't scan.

I do not recommend performing discounts the way I did - too much can go wrong. I just hope that Square adds a true discount feature SOON! For now, back to ERPLY 😞

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

Sean — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 00:24:01 GMT

@sciabica1936 - I'm so sorry! That sounds very frustrating! It is true, most spreadsheet programs drop leading zeros.

We recommend avoiding the use of SKU’s that contain leading 0’s, however you can reformat the cells to show the complete number by following these steps:

With the item import CSV open, select the first Variant SKU column so the entire column is highlighted.
Right-click on the column > select Format Cells.
Select Text.
Click File > Save As and make sure the file format is saved as Comma Separated Values (CSV).
Click Save.
Import this new file to your online Square Dashboard.

Maybe this will help if you try again in the future. 😀

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

Roo — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 08:10:33 GMT

Yes this setting would be greatly appreciated added a whole day of adding the same item twice for a .50 off happy hour i have m-f. My old register had a place to put separate prices in price levels then just turn on the schedule with times to use them price levels when you click that item during that time

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

sciabica1936 — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 17:34:55 GMT

Hey Sean,

This seems like a feature that nearly every user of Square would use. How do we ensure it's being taken seriously by the decision makers at Square?

I would love to have this feature before the holidays so that I don't have to go through another busy season with Erply.

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

Sean — Mon, 12 Sep 2016 17:53:19 GMT

@sciabica1936 - Thanks for reaching out and sharing your thoughts. As far as the process of how and when feature requests become products: it's pretty complex. Our Product Managers take a lot of things into consideration when developing new features, as well as addressing limitations of current features. Customer feedback is certainly one piece of the puzzle that affects prioritization of potential features, but not the only piece. Having said that, the more requests we hear for a certain feature, the case becomes more compelling. While I certainly can't speak to any sort of timeframes, your comments are very much welcomed and impactful.

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

Novice — Tue, 13 Sep 2016 03:13:16 GMT

Plus one for me on this feature! In addition to a seating chart, it could be as simple as table numbers that can be selected vs typing in.

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

jfoste1 — Wed, 14 Sep 2016 14:24:28 GMT

Yes! Was just talking yesterday about our employees having difficulty remember our "$2 off whole bean coffee on Mondays" promo. This could be helpful.

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

Macrule — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 04:35:32 GMT

I would love this feature as well.

I would also love to see a gratuity option (for large parties, etc.) and the ability to reopen a closed ticket to make corrections. At this moment, if an employee closes the wrong ticket a refund must be issued, and the original ticket must be re-entered.

Also, in the split ticket feature we would love the ability to split the cost of an appitizer or a bottle of wine across all tickets at the table instead of one person having to pay for that portion. Right now I have to divide the cost of the item by the number of tickets and add that price as a custom amount to each ticket. This is great, except for when you are tracking inventory on certain items.

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

Sean — Mon, 26 Sep 2016 17:26:51 GMT

@Macrule - Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts. It definitely sounds like these would be useful features indeed (and a time saver). I'll be sure to pass this suggestions along to our product liaison team. For more details on how the feature request process works, please check out this thread. 🙂

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

locale — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 20:05:56 GMT

I agree with @ctkach. Since we just transitioned to Square from a more "robust" POS system, it was a suprise not to be able to discount individual items with a dollar amount. In addition to $1 for happy hour, we also used single item discounts for neighboring businesses and loyalty programs, etc...

A quick work around was to add a discount button with an open amount. Then we could count the number of items requiring discounts and apply it accordingly, but this is clearly not the best solution.

I hope this feature gets added soon. Thanks!

Re: Happy Hour Setting for Discounts

sciabica1936 — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 21:36:00 GMT

Thanks for jumping in @locale! We need everyone to voice their opinion here to nudge @Square to implement "Advanced Discounts" soon.

Yep. An open amount discount is a recipe for lots of errors and potential unauthorized discounts.