Out of Stock?

[JHatCRRD]

I am extremely frustrated! My online account continues to show that my items are out of stock when they are not. No matter what I do it still says OUT OF STOCK. I have read the articles. I have followed the steps. Any advice before I throw my laptop out the window because a website that I am paying for does not work? Thanks. 

[MayaP]

Hello @JHatCRRD,

Thank you for letting us know this is happening. We want to get to the bottom of this. We currently have no reports of this being a known issue so this does seem account specific. To get this resolved quickly let's reach out to Square Online Support at 1-855-700-6000 squ.re/contactsqsupport. If you need any additional help please let me know. Thank you!

[MapaJeff]

I am having the same problem so this is not "account-specific." And there is nobody answering the phones on a Monday between Square's stated business hours. 

[ryanwanner]

Hello @MapaJeff 

Almost every time items show up as sold out there is something not right with your fulfillment setup.

Dashboard -> Online -> Fulfillment

Check all the settings on the fulfillment types you're using for your store, down to the hours of operation.

If everything looks good here, please let us know your site address so we can further troubleshoot.

[MapaJeff]

Ryan,

I followed your links and I am being offered the "choice" of either delivering my maps by courier for 50 cents apiece, or consenting to some opaque fine-print third-party service. That is what I get when I attempt to even get close to anything that looks like "I have product and can ship by US Post like I've been doing for years."

This is a complete fail on Square's part and I am totally fed up! It's the job of the programmers and designers to make this work for customers, not our job to spend every waking hour trying to figure out what goes on in your overpaid, under-employed heads. By the way, why do I have to type and read this message in the faintest gray, barely contrasting enough with the white background to even see what I'm saying?

I plan to find another way to sell my maps. And when I'm done migrating elsewhere, the CEO of Square is getting a very concise, very damning letter, on paper, sent by the US mail to a real desk, on white paper with black print, that's going to make someone very sorry for punishing a simple craftsman like myself trying to make an honest living.

www.mapajeff.com

[faheem]

Hi @MapaJeff - the items on your square site look like they are available now, not out of stock. 

If you're only shipping your items, you can ignore those pickup and local delivery settings pointed out above.

[PartyManiaMD]

Hi Jeff,

I Just want to be clear that neither Ryan or I work for Square, we are also merchants that try to help other merchants whenever they have issues setting up sites or have questions related to Square. We are not compensated by Square, we are not Square employees, and we don't work for Square.

That said, have you taken a look at this site? It's a primer and a fairly easy to understand guide on setting up in-house delivery for Square. If you have any specific questions or issues feel free to ask and we might be able to assist.

As far as your forum settings you can change your forum settings by clicking on your name in the top right corner of your browser and clicking or tapping "My Settings".

Lastly, I truly try to live by the rule of speaking to people the way I would want to be spoken to. Calling Square employees over-paid and under-employed doesn't take into account the very real work they do and support they offer if you call or email them with issues. I know setting up a site can be frustrating and it's easy to want to take out your frustrations on employees or other people but please just look at it from the point of view of how you would like your customers to talk to you and your staff.

Best of luck with your map business!

[ryanwanner]

@MapaJeffOk. I'm glad that my assistance was received with all due consideration.

I'm also thankful that you've taken the time to look through the Pickup and Delivery section of the online settings. You're right: you have to do delivery by courier or third party (or in-house as @PartyManiaMD mentioned) when you're on that screen. Delivery implies someone personally taking your product to someone.

Now, if you want to talk "ship by US Post like I've been doing for years" wouldn't it make sense to look at the Shipping section to configure this? You flat out mention ship in this comment. Here's a help file that'll step you through configuring your site. Perhaps this will be received with a better attitude.

Even though I'm not one of those overpaid, underworked engineers you assume wander the halls of Square HQ, I can say that configuring an online store isn't child's play. There are a lot of bells and whistles and switches and settings and industries that need to be accounted for. So yeah, there will be some long hours to get everything just right. It's the nature of the beast. It took me the better part of a day to fully configure my site, and I'm still tweaking things as I can.

So, as I sit here and read your response, in black text on a white background, I have to wonder: with tens of thousands of merchants on the Square platform, many of whom have online stores set up and functioning daily with hardly any issues at all, would the problem lie with those aforementioned engineers or the one sitting behind the keyboard?

We are all here to help. We are not here to get talked down to. Wherever you end up with your webstore, I wish you the best.

[JHatCRRD]

I can understand where you are coming from in your reply to Jeff. But I can also understand the issue Jeff is having. Since my original post back in November my "Out of Stock" issue mysteriously resolved itself within a matter of days. Meaning, without any additional tweaks being made by me, and being stuck on this issue my items went from "Out of Stock," to "In Stock." And this is not the only issue I have had. Recently the sales tax and shipping cost for my items was not being added at check out. Then after 5 days it just mysteriously corrected itself. It is also frustrating when attempting to contact customer service and they cannot be reached. So, while the problem may or may not be the "person behind the keyboard," what is the merchant to do when they have spent hours reading articles, following instructions, nothing on the site is working as it should, and customer service is nowhere to be found?  Not everyone has the time to be spending long hours tweaking a website day in and day out to no avail. Are these changes and tweaks time delayed? Should we as subscribers have to wait for days for the system to do what we have set it to? All while losing money on sales? 

On a personal note, I see that you live in Colorado Springs. I used to live there and miss it a lot. 

[PartyManiaMD]

Square customer support is available  Mon-Fri 6am-6pm PST. 

I have never had issues reaching someone via phone or online chat and while I apologize that you've encountered issues I've always been able to contact support and resolve any issues in an extremely reasonable time frame.

Etsy is a platform and takes a huge percentage of each transaction while Square is more of a payment processor with added web support. That's not a fair comparison and it really depends on your business needs.

Once your setup is finished there should be very little tweaking or issues when it comes to daily operations.

I also find Square forums extremely helpful when it comes to resolving any issues or if anyone has any questions. 

Best of luck, there are pro's and cons of working with different Software solutions and while Square has room for improvement they also provide those of us with a brick and mortar an easy way to integrate online and in person shopping. There is also no reason you can't use Etsy AND Square given etsy is just another platform to list products on.

[JHatCRRD]

Etsy may charge percentages. But at least when I want to list something for sale I am able to post the item, upload pictures, set prices including sales tax and shipping information. With square the photos might load, or they may not. It does not auto generate the sales tax or include the shipping. With Etsy I do not have to read 12 to 24 articles on why something is or is not working. And I do not have to wait weeks or even months to get a reply on the forums. 

I also sell more on Etsy than I do on Square. Paying a percentage may suck. But paying a monthly fee for a website that does not work or sells anything also sucks. 

[ryanwanner]

@JHatCRRDI fully understand where you're coming from with your frustration. Any changes should be real time for sure, and I'd be curious as to why it isn't for your site. Especially with things changing on their own. In your case, I don't think it's anything you could have done. If it was working then isn't there is definitely a problem on the server side. Your best bet is to contact the online support CS team. As with every call center based support team, I wouldn't be surprised if you had to call in multiple times to get to someone who actually knew what was going on. Is it ideal? No. Is it an absolute pain in the you-know-what to deal with this while trying to run a business? Absolutely.

In theory, once the site is set up you should be relatively ready to go, with the exception of adding and removing items and any sales you may run. Barring any random server hiccups, this should be straightforward.

What I took offense to was the tone of his comment. We're all here to help. We may not have the answers that one is looking for, but the last thing we're doing is trying to steer people wrong. If the comment was more along the lines of "that didn't work, this is what I'm seeing. Any other ideas?" I know that all of us in the community would be willing to keep helping. I'm the same as you: putting every waking hour in my day into my store. I take time away from my livelihood to help people on this community. In the way of your frustration when it just stops working, my frustration comes from when people get feisty when I'm trying to help.

As for COS, you'd probably not recognize it anymore. 😞 We're pushing 800k metro population, the traffic is a nightmare, and it's definitely not that sleepy little cow town it was in the 80s and 90s. Oh well... progress, right?

[JHatCRRD]

800k? Wow! It was 250k when I was there. It has changed. 

[JHatCRRD]

It might be easier and less expensive to just sell on Etsy. Less headaches anyway. At least that site does what you tell it to and their customer service is way more helpful. 

[WineSneak]

We are having the same issue but it is random. Some entered items appear for sale on the online store and some appear as sold out. I am getting nowhere with Square support. 

Here is a screenshot from the most recent culprit. 

[WineSneak]

And now EVERY single item we enter is showing 'out of stock' online. This is just plain bull**bleep**. 

[MayaP]

Hey @WineSneak I hate to hear you are having issues! I do see our advocate reached out via email saying this should have been resolved. 

Your items are still out of stock? 

[WineSneak]

Yes, they did but their response was confusing.

"I checked your items, and they're assigned to two locations: Sneak and TOTV, but only Sneak has stock assigned. To avoid this issue, all of the assigned locations need to have stock".

That makes no sense. The online store is tied to Sneak. Why should TOTV not showing any inventory matter????

We have been using Square Online for years and this is the first time we are hearing about this rule. AND if the advocate's  statement is correct. Why are only some of the items showing out of stock?

[MayaP]

I would advise replying to that email and letting them know it has not been resolved. To further assist here we will need to look at your account and for account security, we cannot discuss specifics here.  you will need to continue to work with support to get this fixed. 

If you need anything else please let us know @WineSneak . 

[WineSneak]

I have been emailing with NO relief 

[MayaP]

Hey @WineSneak thanks for hanging in there! I did reach out to our support team and they did see something that could be causing this. 

On your Online dashboard > Fulfillment > Shipping. Your Shipping from location, which we also using as the primary sync location, is using a now-deleted location. This could cause the syncing function to be wonky. Let's change this to the 'Sneak' location and Save.