Online store item type

[WineSneak]

Managing Square Online Store is a very frustrating full-time job.

Can someone explain this please:

I upload items to Square for Restaurants via the dashboard using Excel. Why all of a sudden has the item type on our online store changed to "Prepared food..."

Now I have to physically click on "ADD ITEM FROM LIBRARY", select the item, wait for it to transfer to the item list, click on it, change the item type back to PHYSICAL. And BTW, why the extra step of going to "ADD ITEMS FROM..." to activate the item for sale online??

I really wish Square would get their act together.

[JohnC58]

This is happening for me as well.  I am using Square fo Retail...every time I add an item using the dashboard the item automatically shows and "Prepared Food..." in the online site items list.  Very frustrating.

[BernadetteA]

Hi @WineSneak and @JohnC58 👋

We made a recent change that will update the item type based on the type of account you have. This change was intentional and meant to help you quickly edit the prep time and nutritional information once it is synced to the Square Online dashboard. 

Can you both provide some more clarification as to why this change does not work for your shop? I would like surface the feedback up to the teams as I'm sure they would be interested in hearing how it is or is not working out in real time. 

Thanks in advance! 

[shannalynn01]

I don't prepare food or do food and beverage stuff. I sell goods, so to have it default to prepare food or food/beverage is not correct for my business.

[WineSneak]

Exactly. We don't prepare food. We are a wine bar and wine shop. 

[WineSneak]

Because we are a wine bar and wine shop. We don't prepare food. We sell product. And is it too much to ask Square to send out changes to the software?

[repopgifts]

I am also having this happen as of recently. I am using square for retail, have always been retail, do I also need to call support to fix the issue? I don't understand how my shop could be set to that type of account as I have been with square for over 10 years and upgraded to square for retail last year and started square online in 2020. 

Setting the default really should be a feature the shop owner can control on their own.

[BernadetteA]

Thanks for reaching out, @repopgifts 👋

Sorry to hear you are also experiencing this unexpectedly. Your merchant category is "Outdoor Markets" and I'm assuming this may be considered a food type shop. I'm not 100% on all of the merchant categories, or what defines a food & beverage business category in our system, but I can try to find out for you. 

You will need to reach out to support if you want to change this. The link to reach the team is here. I do know that there's certain Square features that are accessible depending on your merchant category, so it's definitely a good idea to go over this with a rep so that they can help assign the best category for your business needs. 

[repopgifts]

Ah, thank you. Yes when I first started my Square account I had an artist booth at a market and did outdoor art shows. This probably explains why I get the emails for restaurants and such lol.

Thanks for the link, I had no idea there was such a thing as a merchant category that would affect my account!

[BernadetteA]

You're welcome, @repopgifts 😊❤️

[PCArts]

This has been a disaster for our retail Square. We only use "type" for Online Square. Now inventory items aren't showing up on reports -- we are assuming because they were changed to "Membership" type.  How can we fix this without editing each individual item?

[shannalynn01]

Can I just get all my items to default to "Physical"? They are now defaulting to "Food and Beverage" and I hate having to remember to change that. I've searched everywhere and I can't find where to set the default for it, so I don't have to remember to change it everytime I add or upload new items.

[JohnC58]

I am using Square for Retail, so I assume the recent change should default to Physical for me, however, when I add a new item in POS it shows in Online as a Prepared Food item.  I have not uploaded from an excel file since I  noticed this happening.  All my examples have been individual item manually entered through POS.

[BernadetteA]

Thank you all for the additional information. I'm getting more information from the team, but I believe this is affecting everyone on this thread because of the type of business category that was selected when signing up for the Square account. 

I'll post back on this thread once I have more information to provide, and I appreciate the continued patience. 

[JohnC58]

I'm sorry...I don't think this is correct.  I am having the problem with prepared food items and I am a retail operation.

[BernadetteA]

Hi @JohnC58

It looks like the category you selected on sign up is Food Stores Convenience Stores And Specialty Markets which would explain why your items are getting marked as prepared food. 

I believe the support team can actually change this for you if you reach out to them here.

I'll also post more updates on this thread regarding the update once I hear more. 

[JohnC58]

I have just gotten off a very long phone call with support.  After an hour of transfers and periods on hold, I was told that my account type cannot be changed and I would have to open a new account with a new account category.  What a disappointment.  

While I realize this "recent change" was intended to be helpful, it is not helpful to me.  It seems that a more helpful change may have been to allow the user to set the default item type for themselves,

[shannalynn01]

ARGH!! I have been tossing up switching to Shopify, but I really don't want to redo everything. Creating a new account tanked for me last time I tried. I got married and they said I had to create a new account in order to change my last name. Never heard of such a thing before. In order to create a new account, you need to use a different email and it's all just a pain. Thank you for letting us know the outcome, I was planning on trying to remedy it tomorrow; but now I won't. Maybe it's a sign I need to move on from Square and pay other host for what should be simple features! Best of luck to you John! 🙂

[BernadetteA]

I'm going to follow up with some support people, @JohnC58 because I was always under the impression that the merchant category could be changed. I'll let you both know what I find out as soon as possible.

[BernadetteA]

Hey @JohnC58

I just wanted to follow up with you regarding the Square merchant category for your account. I did get confirmation that a Square rep can make this change for you. I apologize if the previous rep was not aware of this, but it may help to let the next rep know you want to change the "MCC" for your account. 

There are certain features that are available for accounts depending on the merchant category, but the rep can go over your business needs to make sure you are assigned to the best category. Please reach out to the team with this link here.

@WineSneak @shannalynn01

[JohnC58]

Thanks Bernadette.  I just spent 25 minutes with support again today.  I ended up with someone named Ivy.  I told here I wanted to change the MCC, but she wasn't sure what I wanted.  I told her the whole story about my store category being Food Stores Convenience Stores And Specialty Markets and that I needed to be a retail store.  She went into my account and said that I was a retail store.  So, I went to my store to create a test item and it is still defaulting to Prepared food.  Consequently, I am totally confused and extremely frustrated.  Surely there is someone out there who can solve this problem.