Deleting a Variation - will the data still; be available?

[Fruitsofstrathm]

Hi, we sell jams and chutneys and decided a long time ago to have a wholesale and retail variation for each of our products. This was a major mistake as variations have separate inventories and that is a royal PITA to maintain. Much worse, when we moved our online store over to Square (to try to better manage the inventory thing), we discovered you cannot switch variations on and off for the online store.  So now we have a dropdown on the website that offers a wholesale and a retail selection. Not what we wanted at all (and no switch in the variations dialogue box to turn on or off for online). The whole thing is proving to be a bit of a disaster.  In my defence, I have to say that Square has no best practice statement for handling retail and wholesale pricing. This is even after more than 5 years of issues with the requirement, as evidenced by numerous posts in the seller communities that I have read.  Posts made by people like ourselves, looking to implement what should be a perfectly straight forward set of business requirements. Two prices per product, a single source of inventory across channels, and the ability to select which price on which channel. 

That all said, we are planning to drop all wholesale variations, but we want a definitive statement that the data on all transaction history for said deleted variations stays in the Square system and can be queried/reported on.  We have some compelling reasons for asking for this to be confirmed, as we cannot lose that data. Many thanks.

[#2]

Hi there @Fruitsofstrathm,

Thank you for reaching out with your question and providing detailed context. 

@lawnbrook is correct, when you delete a variation in Square, the sales data associated with that variation will still be available in your reports. Deleting the variation will not remove historical sales data; it will simply remove the variation from your current inventory. You can still query and report on this historical data even after the variation is deleted.

Unfortunately, as you've discovered, Square currently does not offer the ability to switch variations on and off for the online store. We are actively advocating for the capability to create multiple price points while tracking items from a single inventory source, based on the feedback we receive from sellers on this platform. For now, the workarounds you've tried appear to be the best options available.

[lawnbrook]

Hi there, 

I believe the data will stand. I've had occasions where I've renamed items and this ends up sorting as 2 different items in the report. Annoying for me but I think logically the right answer. I can see things in my reports that no longer exist in the system. 

Of course this is not a definitive answer from square themselves, just my experience.

[Laurie_]

Hi there @Fruitsofstrathm,

Thank you for reaching out with your question and providing detailed context. 

@lawnbrook is correct, when you delete a variation in Square, the sales data associated with that variation will still be available in your reports. Deleting the variation will not remove historical sales data; it will simply remove the variation from your current inventory. You can still query and report on this historical data even after the variation is deleted.

Unfortunately, as you've discovered, Square currently does not offer the ability to switch variations on and off for the online store. We are actively advocating for the capability to create multiple price points while tracking items from a single inventory source, based on the feedback we receive from sellers on this platform. For now, the workarounds you've tried appear to be the best options available.