New Retail Feature: Sell-by Units and Stock Conversion

[#1]

Square for Retail Plus subscribers will now be able to sell an item in different units, and track inventory with those units - for instance, sell candles by a case of 12, by a bundle of 6, or by a single candle.

This works great for businesses that sell an item in multiple ways, but want to decrement inventory from the same quantity.  This can work for wine shops that sell wine by the case, bottle or glass.  We’ve seen Sellers use it for wholesale pricing, and price breaks for bulk buying.  

Each unit can have its own SKU or GTIN, so the barcode on the case is different from the barcode on the single.  

Retailers can set up a stock conversion in their Dashboard:

1. Navigate to the Items tab of your online Square Dashboard.
2. Select an existing item or click Create an Item.
3. In the Variations section, select Add unit in the price field, or select Edit variation details > Add unit. If your item contains multiple variations, select the variation name and then from the Edit variation details modal, select Add unit.
4. Select a unit, or create a new one, like “case”
5. Under the Conversion section, enter in the conversion details specific to the item variation. For this example, a conversion for a case of candles might be “12 candles is equal to 1 case.”
6. Click Done to save.

In the Retail POS app, these units will be selectable as variations during checkout.

This first version of this stock conversion tool only allows you to create sellable units. These will show in your POS and on your Square Online site.  It does not allow you to create gift baskets or recipes at this time.  When creating purchase orders or counting inventory in the Retail POS app, you’ll only be able to receive/count by the first unit entered.  We are working on more tools to help you receive, count, and make units non-sellable in the future.  

You can repeat this process for any items that you sell in multiple units, as well as create multiple conversions for single items.

For a detailed walkthrough of how to add sell-by stock unit conversions, visit our Support Center here. 

JANUARY 2023 UPDATE:

In addition to "Sell-by Units and Stock Conversation," we have now launched "Sellable / Non-sellable Item Variations."

This provides Square for Retail Plus sellers the ability to toggle item variations either sellable or non-sellable. This feature will work great for sellers who want to track inventory by a specific unit of measure but do not want that unit quantity available for sale.

Read the full update for Sellable / Non-sellable Item Variations.

[SuesSweets]

We sell candy.  Each box we received from the distributor has its own barcode, which is unique from the barcode of the individually wrapped bags or bars in the box.  Our use case would be to scan the barcode on the box and have the quantity of bars get updated appropriately.  For example, if a box included 24 bars, we would scan the barcode of the box then get 24 bars added to inventory.  This would save us time (and errors) while taking in inventory and avoid breaking box seals to scan the barcode of the individual candy items.
Also, we do not sell the boxes separately so we'll wait until the box "variation" can be hidden from the customer.   

[JJ_]

This is a great idea @SuesSweets I recommend you submit a Feature Request here. This will help our product team get visibility and track other Sellers with similar interest in your request. 

Important: When submitting a request, make sure to include the desired feature, and provide the details of how this feature will help your business succeed (how would you use it and what you expect from it).

[quikone]

I really like this feature, we are using it partially for wholesale and ingredients.  Does anyone have any idea how to get a unit out of stock for an item used in building a recipe or assembly?  For example, something  simple:  a chicken and cheese quesadilla made with items pulled from our ingredient list.  How to remove a unit of the main product on a no sale invoice?  Ideas?

Ron

[JJ_]

At this time Square doesn't offer the ability to create recipes made from items in your inventory.  I recommend submitting a feature request here.

[nell_a]

Hi @tranguyen 

Is this the only post authored by Square on this functionality? I seem to remember a more recent one but I may be misremembering. 

We have a requirement to sell items as separate entities and then also bundled together. If sold as a bundle the stock of the constituent parts would be adjusted accordingly. In our business, the example is Item A (Jacket) and Item B (Trousers). When bundled they form Item C (Suit).

Can this be achieved now with the current functionality and if not, are there plans to build the functionality that would? Please forward this to your product team.

We use Square Invoices on Android and in the web browser; we are a Retail Plus seller. 

I provide a link here to another related post. 

Thank you.

[tranguyen]

That's a great question @nell_a! This is the only Square-authored post we have relating to this features on the Seller Community but we do have a Support Centre article as well. 

Unfortunately, at the moment, this feature won't be able to support bundling items as you outlined. Request for bundling items and being able to pull from various inventory is something that have been mentioned frequently on the Seller Community. Our Product team are aware of the demand for this feature and are explore different options on how to build this feature. I hope I'll be able to share a timeline for this soon but it's definitely worth keeping an eye on our Beta Community for upcoming tests. 

[Heather_H]

@Ryan_M I came across your note about having non-sellable units in the works. Any news since March or is there another thread I can follow for progress updates?

This is something we are very interested in as part of the sell-by units/stock conversion feature.

[Ryan_M]

Hi @Heather_H ! 

Non-sellable / non-stockable variations should be launching in the next few weeks. I plan to update this post / thread when that happens and there will also be a new announcement posted on the US Product Updates page. You can subscribe to that page by following the instructions at the top and then you'll be notified of any new posts. 😁

[Ryan_M]

JANUARY 2023 UPDATE:

In addition to "Sell-by Units and Stock Conversation," we have now launched "Sellable / Non-sellable Item Variations."

This provides Square for Retail Plus sellers the ability to toggle item variations either sellable or non-sellable. This feature will work great for sellers who want to track inventory by a specific unit of measure but do not want that unit quantity available for sale.

Read the full update for Sellable / Non-sellable Item Variations.

[MAHughes]

This feature would be absolutely AMAZING if scanning the barcode on one of the sell-by units just added it to the cart, the way scanning any other bar code does.  Having to go through the steps of manually entering quantities and manually adding the item to the cart seems unnecessary.  

[SuesSweets]

still looking for a solution to receive inventory with a case bar code, then sell with only the item bar code. 
or has that been added in the last year?  thanks.

[EastRace]

We use Square Online store for omnichannel. When we add a conversion unit to a variation, is there a way to enable it on Square Online? The candles example is perfect - a buyer may want a box, 6, or just 1. Can that get rendered on square online during the add to cart flow (I'd expect it on the item page)? Thanks

We read https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7237-stock-conversion-sell-by and this. 

[EastRace]

EDIT: yes you can add stock conversions and as long as you add a price on that variation, it will be online.