Conditional Modifiers

[TheRealChipA]

If this has already been suggested, please merge me and count me as an upvote.  Otherwise….. Background, first.

In my ice cream shop, we sell basic soft serve items by the dish, cake cone, waffle cone, sugar cone, and waffle bowl.  Currently, I have to have each of those as an item on my POS.  This can cause problems because customers don’t always “follow the script.”  In order not to have them repeat themselves we need to know WHAT they are ordering first (dish, cake cone, etc), before launching into flavors, toppings and other options.

It would SO much easier if I could create one item, say called “Soft Serve.”  Then, the first modifier set would be the choice of dish or cone and size.  However, in order for this to work, I would need other modifiers to “turn off” based upon this first choice.

As an example, we can’t dip a dish of soft serve into one of our hard shell dips — it would just fall out.  We also can’t put sauces on cones because the sauces would just drip onto the customer’s hands while they were eating it.  This could all be solved by having conditional modifiers that turn off and on based upon the choices made for other modifiers.

I’m putting this in the Restaurants request board, but it applies to all POS, really.  And, it’s probably obvious that it would need to apply to the online store as well.

If we had something like conditional modifiers, we could let the customer order in whatever order they wanted to.  Then, if they waited until last to tell us what they wanted their soft serve served in, and if they made a choice that conflicted with other modifier choices, the POS could just tell us there is a problem and allow us to resolve it.

Easy, right?  LOL

[_Violet]

Hey @TheRealChipA 👋 Thank you so much for submitting this Feature Request!

I've updated it to the "Open" status. This step in the Feature Request process will be a time in which other sellers can add their use cases to your idea to make it stronger and demonstrate further how much it is needed. Later on, we'll re-visit the most popular feature requests in the "Open for Votes" status and bring them to product teams.

To other sellers that see this feature, please “like” the post and reply with a use case that your business would have. This will help to signal that this feature request is even more important to address.

[embspecialties]

Has this been solved? I know Shopify has an add on to work this out, but I really don't want to upload products twice. Conditional logic would help with personalization for my products. 

[TheRealChipA]

@embspecialties As far as I know there have been no updates on this topic.  I haven’t seen a new beta test, which is what I would expect to see.  And nothing in the help documentation has changed.  So, short answer is, no.

[embspecialties]

So disappointing! Thank you for letting me know.

[haveaperkyday]

We would like to see conditional modifiers as well in our coffee shop.  For example, when a customer orders a coffee, is it hot or iced.  If hot, we can ask temps like extra hot, normal, kids temp.  If it's iced, we can ask extra ice, normal, light ice, no ice.  As it is now, we have both those modifiers available for customers to choose when ordering online which can be somewhat confusing

[aoutrance]

This would be good improvement to the customer experience.

In our context, we have for example, a burger to which you can add extra fries (modifier), but with the fries you can choose between different mayonnaises, but we don't want this to appear if the fries are not selected. Another example, some wines are available by the glass and by the bottle (different variants/options), when by the bottle is select, the customer should not have to select how many glasses he woud like if he did not select the bottle option.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[AlexMPH]

@TheRealChipA thanks for the tag/redirect!

@_Violet can we merge this with mine here. I think the combined description will be very helpful for development should (when 😉) it gets moved to the roadmap/next status.

[benh89]

I too would benefit from having much more conditional options within the modifier sets, extending beyond just one set to the next, but also dynamic pricing based on quantities and also whether VAT applies or not.

I hope the below examples help, as they would really be a game changer for us in managing inventory, simplifying the menu and making the use of the website and self-service kiosk much more user friendly.

Thanks,
Ben

Examples

Quantity-based Pricing
With the new quantity options for modifiers (finally!) we can now show our recipes to customer for our seasonal coffees - this is something Starbucks has been able to do for years.

We have 2 sizes of lattes (8oz and 12oz), and it's coming up to PSL season. In an 8oz we put 1 pump, and in a 12oz we put 2 pumps. I want to be able to set this as a default within the modifier set based on the size the customer has chosen so they can then add or remove pumps and other options on the Kiosk (and as a reminder for staff, as well as feed correctly into our inventory and cost management system).

• Customers may wish to reduce the pump (-1 on a 12oz for example), or as is more often the case, add an extra pump.
• For syrups being added to a normal latte, we charge 60p for the 'default' pump, and 30p for the 'extra'.
• I'd like to be able to have the pumps included in the price still show by default without adding multiples of the charge, nor having to create endless extra modifier groups or variations.
• If a customer selects:
  • an 8oz PSL, it'll show a default 1 under the flavour modifier set; and
  • a 12oz PSL, it'll show a default 2 under the flavour modifier set.
    in both cases not increasing the price since it's built into the variation/item
• If a customer then:
  • adds a pump it'll increase the price by 30p; or
  • removes a pump the price stays the same.
• Currently, using the logic as-is today, this would:
  • add 60p on an 8oz and £1.20 on a 12oz drink by default (I can adjust the menu price but it's *very* clunky and wouldn't then work with removing a pump);
  • require multiple variations and modifier sets on top of a lot of other customisations; and
  • charge 60p for the extra pump.

Price banding for quantities and modifier set relation

Similarly to the above, we sell all our coffees with a double shot as standard. Some customers may want just a single shot, others may want to add a single or double shot. As we sell different blends in store (simplified just with or without caffeine for this example), I would like a way to again display the number of shots with the ability for the customer to adjust this up and down.

We use the same amount of coffee for both single and double shots (only double baskets) and as such we don't reduce the cost for a single, nor do we charge twice for a double addition.

If a customer chooses:

• -1 / single shot, no price change;
• +1 / extra shot, +£1.20; or
• +2 / extra double shot +£1.20.

I can display this in word modifiers but it would be great to utilise the quantities now it's coming in.

Further to this, since I cannot limit a customer within a modifier set adding up to 4 shots across 4 different blends, I would have a separate modifier for the blend selection. I am able to do this today, but for my inventory to correctly reduce the coffee used in any one drink, I need the quantity selected in the 'number of shot' modifier to be a child of the 'blend selection' modifier.

Tax Modification

Finally, it would be incredibly beneficial if we were able to assign whether VAT (Sales Tax) applied to the overall product based on the modifier or not (even if this were able to be done at a variation level it would be great).

I don't make the rules I'm about to try to explain - I just follow them!

In the UK, VAT is applied to all hot teas/coffees, but iced teas/coffees are VAT exempt when purchased for takeaway (one of my sites is just a kiosk).

I would love to have a modifier for "iced" which would then make the necessary price adjustment but also remove the VAT from the product. I have to duplicate all the drinks we make hot and iced at the moment for this sole reason.

I know it is possible to manually remove VAT from the product, but that requires an extra step I would rely on the team to do, and it won't get done every time. It's more significant outside the US since all prices shown to customers are always tax inclusive (whether they're taxed or not).

Further to this, it's the same with hot and cold food. Where I have filled croissants and a customer takes it away cold, there is no VAT charged, If a customer wants this toasting, VAT is due.

The modifier in this instance would then need to do the opposite to the above and make the item subject to VAT along with the additional charge.

Again here I have to duplicate items, which then makes stock tracking a nightmare for the team as they're then prone to be oversold with neither showing out of stock as the base product is split across both.

Conditional Options by Location

Finally, I'd love to be able to not have to duplicate modifier sets on the back end due to different sites having different coffee blends as the 'house' blend, or not having all the blends. My smaller site only has 2 blends, and uses a different blend as a house blend from the other sites (different demographic).

Currently, I have to have modifier sets for all the shops separately as I cannot make options within the modifier set available or unavailable at different locations (which is frustrating, as I can adjust the price!). I can make the entire set available or unavailable at different locations though, which I have had to do else I can't set the default blend option by location which would be incredibly useful.

Instead of having 3 different modifier sets with near identical coffee blends applied to every coffee item I have (already duplicated due to the VAT on hot/iced as above) all then showing up at different locations, and with the different location-based pricing (one site charges for decaf as prices are lower as standard for example), I could have 1 with the conditional logic where I can list all the blends, have them show or not based on the location with the relevant pricing for that location.

Negative Modifier

Whilst we're on modifiers - it would be great to have a negative modifier. For example removing something fundamental from the plate/product without having to faff around applying all sorts of made up discounts.

Another use case (for us) is where we have a vegan option. For example our lotus biscoff latte uses a topping sauce mixed with the espresso. However, as it contains milk, we have the option to switch this to a syrup and I want to be able to charge less for it - but we can't without silly work arounds. Thankfully the vegan option is not ordered that often, but it frustrates me as much as it does the customer and team that it's a bit of a downgrade for the same price.

[mgbobatoons]

I, too, would really like to see this added for reasons similar to the examples listed above. I think plenty of use cases have already been mentioned, so just posting to add a voice to the thread and hopefully show Square this should be done 🙂