Pickup scheduling interface recommendations

[zder]

Square Folks,

I appreciate the updated Pickup scheduling interface. It has been streamlined and is easier for the customer to understand.

However, the Scheduling feature of the online store is still not useable for our bakery, as we can not yet control it to follow our business rules.

Here are some improvements that would help this functionality be much more useful for bakeries,

1. Add seller-control over future date maximum (from current default of 90 days only) to any specified date or date time-period (MM/DD/YYYY, 1 week, 2 weeks, 30 days).
2. Add blackout dates when future orders can not be placed, (e.g., holidays).
3. Add Scheduling checkbox to item records indicating whether or not an item can be ordered beyond next available date (Next Available Date Only or Allow Scheduled Pickups).

Thank you, and keep up the good work.

[ryanwanner · Accepted solution]

Reading through these replies, and I'm fascinated by the way everyone is tweaking the online environment to best suit their needs. I think before we start slamming on the dev teams we should appreciate that the product is capable of working in so many configurations!

@VanKalkerFarms this is a really interesting idea on how to accommodate pickup times! I wouldn't have thought about that way.

With my bakery, I have been having no issues with the online store with regards to pickup orders. I have my bulk baked goods set to take 1 business day to prepare. All my advertising talks about how to change the pickup times when in the store. I have only had one order that came in where they didn't understand the time restriction. And as @kellyj can attest to, I have plenty of "what's a com-peuu-turr" kind of clientele. 🙂

With my store hours set, I haven't had any issues with people trying to order on a day I'm closed. I do wish the Change pickup times link on the online store was a little more prominent than it is, but it's working really well for us.

As for no orders on Christmas, since I'm on only a 1 day out timetable, all I have to do is go into the store and remove the Friday hours. Easy and only takes me a minute or two do deal with it.

And @waggydags while I appreciate where you're coming from, I would point out that Square was initially geared towards coffee shops and QSR style restaurants. To say that nobody over there understands is a little bit of an insult, especially since the online store as it is now barely existed a year ago--they have put a lot of time and effort into making this a usable product in such interesting times.

[kellyj]

@zder 

There is a lot of discussion around these scheduling improvements in the seller community proper and here in Beta. 

Thank you for this. I will see if I can find out roadmapped features for the scheduling feature in the new year.

You were added to our Square Online Test group, correct?

[waggydags]

I think that all of these features should have been implemented before they even released order scheduling. Seems like whoever designed/approved the current release has never worked in food or retail... very few places are open 365 days a year...

[kellyj]

@waggydags and @zder 

I definitely hear the frustration. Our team has to do most of these improvements and launches in steps, and getting this shipped in a usable format for some businesses was the first step.  The Square Online roadmap has changed drastically from where it started when COVID changed pretty much the suite of our online offerings - so when the full dev team is back after the holidays, I will see where we can go with this. I know it is not suited to your current business needs, and there are some blockers to making it function as you want. Let see if we can get some firm dates on when this will be updated to suit more bakery and foods services pick up needs. 

[Gary55]

Thanks for the insight to your launch process @kellyj. I would be interested in any beta testing of this functionality it the future 

[zder · Accepted solution]

@kellyj,

I see that Restricted dates have now been added to the Square Online Pickup & delivery Hours settings. This change appears to resolve my Blackout Dates recommendation.

Cool, and Thank You! Keep going!

[kellyj]

@zder 

Now that is good news for this year!

[VanKalkerFarms]

Yes, the current scheduling does nothing for us as we would like it to be.  We worked around it by creating items in day categories with the day of pickup in the item name.  It still causes plenty of confusion for customers.  We get 1-10 calls a day about pickup issues because when they place their order we have square assign a date a month or so out because I don't want dates a week out and people are preordering 3 weeks ahead because then they'll see that their order is ready before the holiday.  It is definitely a complicated issue with no setup that will fit everyone.  The hybrid we have come up with has netted us over a thousand pre-orders between Christmas and thanksgiving that would have tied up a cashier for 5 minutes taking orders and payment over the phone

What we do for our pre-orders for our bakery is only a few days right before the holiday, for example, 12/22, 12/23, 12/24 for Christmas.  We only want to allow choosing from those specific days.  and then when Paczki day, easter, or thanksgiving rolls around we choose the days that pre-orders are available.

here is our implementation, though it might not be up anymore by the time you read this as it is only up for the rest of the day.  So I'll add a few screenshots.

https://risen-roll-cedar-lake.square.site

[ryanwanner · Accepted solution]

Reading through these replies, and I'm fascinated by the way everyone is tweaking the online environment to best suit their needs. I think before we start slamming on the dev teams we should appreciate that the product is capable of working in so many configurations!

@VanKalkerFarms this is a really interesting idea on how to accommodate pickup times! I wouldn't have thought about that way.

With my bakery, I have been having no issues with the online store with regards to pickup orders. I have my bulk baked goods set to take 1 business day to prepare. All my advertising talks about how to change the pickup times when in the store. I have only had one order that came in where they didn't understand the time restriction. And as @kellyj can attest to, I have plenty of "what's a com-peuu-turr" kind of clientele. 🙂

With my store hours set, I haven't had any issues with people trying to order on a day I'm closed. I do wish the Change pickup times link on the online store was a little more prominent than it is, but it's working really well for us.

As for no orders on Christmas, since I'm on only a 1 day out timetable, all I have to do is go into the store and remove the Friday hours. Easy and only takes me a minute or two do deal with it.

And @waggydags while I appreciate where you're coming from, I would point out that Square was initially geared towards coffee shops and QSR style restaurants. To say that nobody over there understands is a little bit of an insult, especially since the online store as it is now barely existed a year ago--they have put a lot of time and effort into making this a usable product in such interesting times.

[zder]

@waggydags,

I appreciate the best answer tag. However, Square has implemented only 1 of my 3 suggestions (blackout dates) in this thread. So, all of these issues involving the Pickup scheduling interface are not yet solved.

@kellyj,

I would appreciate it if you could remove the solved flag from this thread. Thank you.

[Gary55]

@ryanwanner I totally agree here. I think the Dev team has done a great job here. I love the suggestions for new pickup scheduling made features by @zder and hope to be involved on the beta in due time but I would rather be using a system that is slick, stable and reliable with limitations than something that is rushed out that is unreliable and full of bugs. We are all business owners and should understand that we only have so many resources so have to make comprimises on what we choose to persue as i am sure the Dev team is doing.

Our Bakery, Cafe & TakeAway business changes menus weekly, we have different collection times at the same address for different items, Special event items available only on specific dates and although

it took plenty of testing & tweaking the pickup scheduling to work how we needed it we now able to do all this with a little extra work on my side.

Key was following this with loads of ongoing communication to our customers on how to get the best experience out of it.  https://pipsrailwaycarriage.square.site/

I would recommend that sellers persevere with the pickup scheduling as we have really benefited from this.

[zder]

@Gary55,

I appreciate your point of view - stability, reliability, and communication are all very important. The link to your Order Online page Item Availability statement is useful.