Setting up deliver times and order cut off time

[CamBap]

Hi 

the following is what i wanted to do.

order can be made until 2pm. and any order after 2pm is allocated for tomorrow pick up or delivery.

I set my business time for pick up 11am-8pm, delivery to 6pm-8pm only.

i have played with prep times from none to 5 hours but do not think it works.

Eatimate delivery times 5-10 mins.

it is now 14:30. if i set prep time to 2 hours then delivery options at check out changes to Tomorrow 6:05. this is what i want the checkout to look like. is this way right? I will need to try tonight but it did not work last time so i changed the prep time to other hours.

[tranguyen · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the Seller Community @CamBap! I'll do my best to help with this.

At the moment, there isn't a way to set order cut off time. That's currently a feature request and I can definitely chase our Product team on this again. 

Because we can't set order cut off time, this mean we'll need to rely on adjusting the prep time to fit with pick up and delivery hours you've set.

In this case, because your pickup time is 11AM-8PM, if the prep time is 2 hours, then customers placing order after 2PM will be assign a slot on the same day (if I place a pickup order at 2PM for example, the slot I'm given will be 4PM). However, delivery would be push to the next day. 

As such, setting the prep time to 5 hours will do what you'd need. I had a play around with this earlier on. When I'm trying to place order at around 3PM, with the prep time set to 5 hours, both pickup and delivery are pushed to tomorrow. 

I hope this will help!

[CamBap]

Hi Tranguyen,

i have just amend the prep time to 5 hours now. I think it will kind of work. 

I will keep an eye on it and come back to you if i need to.

thank you ever so much for your quick response.

[CamBap]

Hi, I have just looked to my website with the setting as advised.

it is now 10pm. the setting is as follows

pick up 10am to 8pm

delivery 6pm to 8pm

Estimate delivery 5-10 mins

prep time 5 hours.

i am given delivery slot for next Wed rather than for tomorrow!

our business runs 3 day a week. Wed-Fri.

if what you said worked then i should have been given a slot for tomorrow.

can you help please?

i have just changed back to no prep times for anyone who would order overnight.

thanks a lot in advance.

CamBap

[tranguyen]

Sorry to hear that @CamBap! Hmm, because of the hours I'm unable to replicate this right now but it's likely to do with how the prep time and delivery & pickup times are working with each other. What I'm going to do is to raise this with our ECOM specialists team as well so we can look into this further and see the best way to set this up for you.

[CamBap]

yes please. 

At first i did set up the prep time to 0 and played with delivery estimate time etc. due to having to get the delivery more convenient rather than pick-up. but what has happened today is a customer ordered it with pick up time within 30mins which would be impossible for us to get the order ready. so I have amended it to 45 mins now. which means that we earn 45 mins more for pickups but delivery time to choose does not start from 6pm but nearly 7pm. not a big problem. but I would like to give customers as accurate information as possible and choose what suits them best. 

I look forward to your solution ASAP.

thanks a lot in advance.

CamBap

[tranguyen]

Hey @CamBap, I just want to let you know I'm still working with the team to clarify one or two points on this. I'm hoping I'll have a complete answer for you by tomorrow at the latest.

Thank you for bearing with me!

[CamBap]

hi Tranguyen, 

thank you very much for updating me on this.

I look forward to your solution tonight!

thanks a lot in advance.

CamBap

[tranguyen]

Apology for the delayed reply here @CamBap, it took a bit longer than expected just to confirm everything.

From testing the settings further and chatting with the team, I got a bit more information on how prep time works. Prep time is only applied during times when you're open for delivery or pickup. This means for example:

• Prep time is set to 5 hours
• Delivery is only available between 6pm and 8pm
• The system will schedule the delivery two days out (2 hours for day 1, 2 hours for day 2 and 1 hour for day 3).

Right now, because we lack the ability to implement a cutoff time (it looks like the feature is currently being designed) or the ability to remove the automatic expected pickup time (this was due to roll out in Q1 but has since been pushed back to this quarter), there is no elegance solution for this. the team mentioned that the only workaround they've been able to implement with some degree of success is by going in and changing the prep time when needed. For example:

• During the day, you can set prep time to no prep times or at least 10-15 minutes depending.
• After 2pm, you can change this to 5 hours so that it pushed pick up orders to next day.
• This does mean you might need to create items for delivery separately and set the prep time for those delivery items at 2 hours after 2pm, so that the next slot will be the next day and not two days out. 

[CamBap]

thank you very much for your time and effort. 

yes it is bit disappointing but that is what i have been doing.

I hope you can find a solution soon.

by the way, is there any way of controlling individual menu, i.e I can set up a different prep time to an item so that if it is ordered with another then it takes precedence over so the longer prep time applies?

then I can paly a little bit more to better suit my needs with your current setting.

thanks.

CamBap

[tranguyen]

Our team are working to improve the overall pickup & delivery experience, so I'll be sure to update this thread as I get more updates from them!

In the meantime, you can set prep time on an item level! When you click into any particular item, instead of Use location default, you should be able to specify the time you want.

I hope this will help somewhat!

[CamBap]

thank you very much Tranguyen.

just one more question. should i click on 'Self-serve ordering'?

we do pickups and deliveries only.

thanks.

[tranguyen]

Hey @CamBap! Self-serve ordering is just something I have on my test account; you don't need to tick this if it isn't something you offer. 

[tranguyen]

Hey @CamBap, you may have seen this by now but I just want to share that our team has recently roll out a feature that allow you to set a cut-off time for orders if they want them to be fulfil the same day. You should see this when editing your pickup & delivery settings under Fulfilment > Pickup & Delivery on your Square Online dashboard.

You'll also see a fulfilment calculator on the right handside that will shown the fulfilment time & date customers will see at checkout, depending on when they order. 

To set this up:

1. Navigate to Online Checkout 
2. Tap > Fulfillment 
3. Tap > Pickup & Delivery
4. Tap > Edit next to the location to be edited 
5. Scroll to “Do orders need to be placed by a certain time to be fulfilled the same day?”
6. Highlight the circle “Orders must be placed by a specific time”
7. Enter the time orders must be placed by
8. Tap > Save

I hope this will help!