Hi all,
A restaurant asked me today about this new UI - layout design for Online Order, is this something that is slowly rolling out to each restaurants or do they enable this somehow on the backend, thanks!
Site - https://el-coyote-tacos-y-tequila.square.site/
Hello there, @websitechicks
What you're seeing here is our new design, Square Online Websites for our Food and Beverage Sellers Online Order For Everyone (OOFE). This design features an easy and ready to use website that allows Sellers to get their Online ordering up in no time. This design is now offered as out of the box option for New Square Food and Beverage Sellers.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
@JJ_ Not to be devil's advocate, but..... it's not for everyone as far as I understand. Those of us with legacy websites can't use it, can we? I see at the end of your post you said "new." While that's correct, I think the marketers might want to reconsider the "for everyone" part since it is not actually true. Ha.
@JJ_ I'm starting to worry that Square is becoming a cable company. Only offering their new stuff to new customers. It's not a good look, IMO.
I completely understand your concern. Our approach is not that of a cable company but more of a lesson learned from past experiences. In the past, we have migrated everyone to new designs or changes, and as you may have seen or experienced yourself, not everyone has been happy about it.
I will investigate if Sellers can switch from Square Online Websites (not Weebly sites) to this new experience and get back to you. Keep in mind that most likely this will be a switch and not a migration, as it is a completely different infrastructure.
I agree 100% with @TheRealChipA, @JJ_ is there a release update on the Square site we can point square customers to? We are a Square Solutions Partner and feel pretty left out of these updates that affect the way we work with clients.
Any info on this switch we can better guide sellers with would be super appreciated.
Thanks, @JJ_.. To clarify, I wasn't at all suggesting the Square automatically do the switch/migration for us. Rather that it be an option for us to consider. Having watched and been a part of the migration from F&B online categories to F&B menus -- a concept that I 100% LOVE LOVE LOVE, btw -- I agree that going forward there should never be Square-initiated migration of anything. It needs to go at our pace within a time period Square defines. But, I'm very happy that sort of thing is going to be in our rearview mirror from here on.
Yah, what's the deal? I have been waiting for this kind of UX update for years. I even sat down with a Square UX designer to provide my feedback on the existing Square Online UX and saw a lot of those suggestions implemented in that template. Most importantly, the manner in which the online ordering experience communicates the fulfilment method and time. As it stands, customers are barely able to tell they can change the fulfilment method or time during checkout as the "How to Get It" section doesn't clearly show customers they can change that info. The alternative is the altered ordering flow where you non-eloquently force the fulfilment method selection on the customer before the customer has even had an opportunity to browse what you have. Item Pages and Direct Links to specific locations are borderline unusable as the customer is never clearly shown their fulfilment method or time and it is unclear to them that they can edit in the cart.
It's time for Square to show the restaurants which make up a lot of their business some love on the Online UX. The current limitations ultimately negatively affect conversion and cause a lot of headaches for operators that want to offer an easy-to-use and robust online ordering system for same-day and future orders.
THIS BETTER BECOME AVAILABLE TO CURRENT USERS
I got great news from our Square Online team, @websitechicks! There is now a way to have both a Square Online Site and an Ordering Profile (The new name for the service wink wink @TheRealChipA).
New and existing Sellers can now create an Ordering Profile from their Square Dashboard.
@JJ_ Sweet. I'm going to check that out. Since I'll be closed for a week at the beginning of February to move to our new venue, it might be the perfect time to switch. Thanks! (to the team, too!)
@JJ_ Following up. Wow, that was quick! I absolutely love the interface so much more than my current online store. It looks more polished and solid, especially with a lot of dead whitespace removed. I want to make sure I'm doing this correctly when I make the switch. I assume these are the basic steps:
Is it really that simple, or am I missing something?
I'm going to play around with this a lot more. But this is an amazing upgrade for F&B sellers. Kudos to everyone involved.
Chip
PS -- before I start singing the praises of this on the F&B board, has this rolled out to everyone, now?
Yeah! That is one simple way to make it work, @TheRealChipA. Keep in mind that if you have any featured item sections, these might still point to the Square Online checkout experience, so keep an eye on that to remove any section that could bring a different checkout experience than the one you are expecting.
@JJ_ So that means we can use this new UI/UX design for our Square Site? If so, how do we replace or switch from the existing one?
This will not replace your Square Online site, but will be a separate Ordering page. You don't need to have both sites if you prefer to continue using the ordering profile as your only site.
The Ordering profile is a CashApp link such as this one - https://cash.app/order/$provechomexicanresta
Is it possible to switch our existing online ordering page to the new UX/IU? (ie. the .square.site) like the example I shared.
Thank you
@websitechicks From what I can see, it's really as simple as this. Wherever you are linking to the standard "Order Online" page, change that to go to an external URL, which would be your ordering profile URL. Heck, while you are testing, you can leave the Order Online page alone, as long as there are no links to it. That's what I did, anyway, and it worked just fine.
The cashapp link layout is a bit different, improved but not the same one as the screenshot in my original post, can you share your Ordering Profile URL? Thanks!
@JJ_ Are these are two separate things? The cashapp link and ordering profile link, or am I missing something, thank you.
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