[Important] Update to your coupons on Square Online

[#1]

Hi sellers! 👋

If you have existing coupons on Square Online, we wanted to notify you of some upcoming changes to your coupons on Square Online. Starting on March 25, 2024, creating and managing coupons is moving from your Square Online dashboard to Square Marketing, our product suite of marketing automation tools.

This change will allow you to manage and edit coupons in one central location—whether for your online website or email campaigns.

Here is what’s changing: 

• Existing coupons - Any existing coupons created within Square Online will no longer be active starting March 25, 2024. You’ll need to recreate those as new coupons within Square Marketing. 
• New coupons - Any new coupons will need to be created in Square Marketing, not within your Square Online dashboard.
• Supported coupon types - You can offer coupons for $ or % off for all items or at the category or item level, as well as coupons for free shipping or delivery. 
• Limiting coupon usage per customer* - To apply limits to a coupon per customer, you’ll need to use the “Offer a coupon” template in Square Marketing—a paid feature.

Creating and managing coupons in Square Marketing is free and does not require a subscription. For enhanced features such as creating personalized coupons and sending coupons in Square Marketing emails, upgrade to a paid subscription.

If you have existing coupons, we recommend that you take action immediately and recreate these Coupons in Square Marketing to minimize disruptions to your business. 

If you have not created coupons using Square Online, you do not need to take any action at this time. 

To learn more about creating coupons using Square Marketing, read this help article. Have questions about how this change affects you? Comment below and let us know.

[Tommer1]

Will we be able to do get $x off of a purchase of $y?

[Cubanita]

@kcappsdoes this include coupons created on Weebly? I sure hope not because it would make all my printed marketing materials and current coupons completely unusable. I have hundreds of personalized codes and codes limited to one use per customer and codes based on spend amount that would not be doable. Please tell me Weebly coupons are not affected.

[Summer2024]

Hey hey @Cubanita! 

I come with good news! This update is for Square Online only. Your Weebly coupons will not be affected! 😀

Please let us know if you have any other coupon questions! Happy selling this week! 

[Cobbles]

Hello Kelsey @kcapps 

Sadly, I have to say that the way this change has been implemented is very poorly considered for existing coupon users.

We have over 50 coupons set up (mostly given to individual customers, but not targeted at them specifically) and would expect Square to have included a way to migrate these to the new Marketing area.

There is nothing, we are expected to input them all again.

The new setup in Marketing has been released with many existing coupon features missing - they will apparently be added later.

Why do the changeover before it has been properly completed and hugely inconvenience a large number of your users by removing existing functionality that they are relying on?

A few examples:

• Our existing coupons use underscore characters, these are not allowed in the new system, so the codes we have given out can’t be created in the new area. This will annoy customers who try to use the codes we have already given them and find they don't work.
• Most of our coupons are single use, there is no way to set this in the new system, so we could lose revenue by double use of a code.
• I also see that the option to apply a discount over a certain spend amount is missing, so what are sellers with; e.g. £5 off over £50 spend discounts, supposed to do?
• The new coupons aren't even editable!

Why has this change been rolled out before matching current functionality and without considering the implications to existing users? It shows a very concerning lack of thought for your sellers.

You say "If you have existing coupons, we recommend that you take action immediately and recreate these Coupons in Square Marketing to minimize disruptions to your business."  Disruptions to business are unavoidable because you cannot recreate the same coupons in Square Marketing!

Please delay the implementation of this switch over until it is fully completed - you are going to have a large number of very unhappy sellers when they realise how their business has been disrupted.

[PizzaDive]

@kcapps, I hate to jump on the train here but I don't think this functionality is anywhere near ready. We took Squares recommendation and tried to migrate our coupons to marketing in advance, and it was a pretty big disaster. Long story short I beg Square not to make this change until the full functionality from coupons is in marketing, and to send out emails announcing the delay of the migration. I've received multiple emails about the migration, but zero announcing the delay until I looked on this thread.

We use the coupons to track fundraisers we run for local organizations, because there isn't a better method to track the sales for online orders. We create codes like "SPIRIT1" that discounts the entire sale by $0.01, since $0 discounts aren't permitted. So when we migrated these to marketing, we kept that setup - entering the discounts as $0.01 discounts. It was insanely glitchy to create the discounts, because when you click different areas within the creation screen it resets the data. If you enter $0.01 as the "Custom Amount" and then click on the "Description" to change it, it resets the "Custom Amount" to $1 (and vice versa). And then, even if it all looks good like this picture below, it'll reset the data again when you hit submit, BUT there is no way to view what the coupon actually is after you create it. For instance, it showed we were creating a marketing coupon for $0.01 and it was actually for $1 even though it never showed that when creating it. But it shows clearly when you go to check out online:

A screenshot taken the moment before I hit save on this coupon:

Checking out its $1 somehow:

This last week we had our first fundraiser under the new system and tons of people used the marketing coupon we had created, but there was no sales tracking whatsoever and somehow the coupon also ended up with a value of $0 which means it doesn't even show up on the transactions receipts for me to try to track down how many people used it, the data simply doesn't exist. So we had to purely guess how many orders used it, which is insane and shouldn't even be possible.

Applying the marketing coupon shows on the sales summary, BUT not in any redemption tracking per the following pictures:

[Cobbles]

Has sense prevailed and this change been quietly cancelled?

I am not getting the warning to move the coupons any more, and one I just created in the Online section was valid when I tried a dummy online purchase.

[JJ_]

Hello there @Cobbles

Yes, our team has decided to postpone the completion of coupons over to the Square Dashboard. Stay tuned for future updates as this is still on the roadmap. 

[Cobbles]

We're relieved to hear it - thanks for the update

[lmcwriter]

Hello, I'm trying to figure out how to edit vouchers to limit them to one use only (rather than clients being able to use them multiple times). But this is all I see. And the three dots don't give me any options for editing... Thank you for any help! 

[Sineaid]

Hi @lmcwriter!

Thanks for reaching out to the community for advice on this. 

I went ahead and merged your post to an existing thread where other Square Sellers have discussed the ability to create one time use vouchers. We merge conversations together to keep similar comments in one place, and to make it easier for others to find the thread in the future. 

As you’ll see from the original post from our product manager, to apply limits to a coupon per customer, you’ll need to use the “Offer a coupon” template in Square Marketing. From your Marketing tab select Campaigns > Create a Campaign > Offer a Coupon.

I hope this helps!

[Alibon]

Thank you for continuing to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

So these coupons are no longer editable?

https://squareup.com/dashboard/customers/marketing/coupons

The documentation says this:

"Share the code with customers by selecting ••• and choosing your share option."

That does not appear to be an option.

I also see this:

"Automatic discounts are now available for Square Online!"

with no further information. Is this the automatic discounts that apply to groups in the POS system? These do not appear to apply to online purchases. Does this requiring users logging in (and us using that feature, which has multiple issues for us).

Lastly, let me add that I have no issue with users expressing their frustration in strong terms, while the companies they pay continue to ignore their issues for years, then claim it's more important to be civil than to fix the problems that make users upset in the first place. There's two ways to eliminate that salty discourse, and we'd all prefer you eliminate the issue from your end.

[mkhellman]

@kcapps We received an email last week stating this switch will happen August 7. I have a couple items that I would like to find out how to address since the Marketing coupons definitely work different than the online coupons do currently, and I am not having luck accomplishing what we need using the new Square Marketing coupons.

1. We need to allow a coupon code for customers to receive 100% off their order(s) with no spending, category or item limit. Currently, we have a code set up in Online coupons that allows for this, using the 100% off option, this is not an option with Marketing coupons (99% is the max allowed).

2. To accomplish #1 in Square Marketing Coupons, I found that we can use "Fixed Discount" and enter up to $999 - if we NEED to go this route for these coupons, I am interested if the $999 is per customer, or is it total amongst all customers (so if we give this coupon to 5 people, can they spend up to $999 each, or $999 between the 5 of them, so around $200 each)?

3. In Marketing Coupons, there is no way to edit a coupon code that is created - it would be really nice to be able to see all of the features that we previously selected.

4. In Marketing Coupons, there is no option to "Delete Coupon", just a "Cancel Coupon" option. I have already created a few coupons to test with that I would like to either edit or delete to clean up before beginning to use this new option.

I would appreciate if you have any insight into how to proceed with all of these issues within the new Marketing coupon implementation, since it definitely affects our process within our business.

Thank you!

[TRC2020]

I am going to chime in on this "Limit number of coupon usage per customer" is a feature that "will come at a later time" (or that you can pay for separately, but only if you want to email the coupon to a customer) is just NOT an acceptable change.

This is exposing your customers to unmanagable expenses.  We can no longer offer birthday coupons or one time use coupons.  Is your management so daft that they don't understand this basic problem and EXTREME RISK you are placing on your users?  It's insane!

As of tonight we are evaluating different platforms because of this as well as recent meetings with your Loyalty Team and SMS where we brought to light glitches in your systems that we uncovered during testing that make both products unusable by any customer (they just aren't aware of the issues, but we are).  Had any of these teams been working for me, I would have fired their head managers and replaced them immediately.  I'm at a complete loss.

[blueflowerart]

@TRC2020 I have not regretted my move to Shopify. Sooooo much more to work with. I still use the Square terminal for face to face sales but my online shop is so much happier. 

[Tommer1]

@blueflowerart could you give some info on how the sync works between square POS and shopify's website?

Does the inventory get updated?

Do online orders from shopify show up in the POS?

Thank you!

[nika]

Hi all! There's a new update regarding coupons. Check it out here!

[Cobbles]

We notice that the migration is now being forced on 2 Sep, yet the new marketing vouchers still have crippled functionality compared to existing ones.

In particular there is no option to limit usage to once per customer, or just once in total.

So we give a code to a customer which is meant to be a one-off discount, but they apparently can use it multiple times until we  disable it. Have we missed something here?

If we haven't, why has this feature not being implemented?

This could potentially cost us and other businesses a lot of money.

It's very concerning that real world usage doesn't appear to have been properly thought through in this change.

[BradenSQ]

Hi @Cobbles! We understand your concern. The features you mentioned (limiting usage of vouchers to once per customer or once in total), as well as others like "100% off entire sale" and "restrict a voucher to sales over a certain amount," are about to begin final testing and will be released in the next few weeks. For anyone that is using these voucher features in Square Online today, we will wait on their transition to Marketing until the features are available.

Thank you for your feedback, and let us know if you have any other questions!

[Cobbles]

That’s good to know - thanks. We often sell instore gift vouchers with variable amounts and unique codes so it’s a really important part of our business / revenue stream.

[jehedges]

For years I have offered the following coupon codes to my clients:

If they spend $60+, they can use a coupon to get $5 off.

If they spend $90+, they can use a coupon to get $10 off.

If they spend $120+, they can use a coupon to get $15 off.

It appears that the option to create coupon codes for "Orders Over a Certain Amount" is missing.  This is a serious issue for my business and needs to be rectified.  Please let me know what we need to do get this sent to those in charge to correct this issue.

[NTastic]

Coupons / Vouchers are rubbish - So limited

I have just moved over from Wix and can;t believe how bad Square Online is, latest issue is coupons only discount 1 item. 

It is annoying enough that when you set up the coupon on specific item that you then have to add all the individual options (why cant it auto in all options or ask do you want all options). But the code only applies to 1 item in the cart. I want it to apply to all items covered by the coupon in the cart. 

Also why can't you edit or delete coupons instead of creating more and more trying to find out what might work.

Solutions suggested in UK:

Option 1:

Instead of giving 10% of 1 product with 2 options I should give 10% of entire catalogue.

Option 2:

Set up an automatic discount on 1 product with 2 options and give every customer who buys it a 10% discount.

Either way I am out of pocket but that is fine as I will invoice Square for the lost revenue as it is their way of doing coupons. 

I have read online that this issue has been known about since at least September 2024 and Square can't be bothered to listen and do anything to fix it as they know better than end useres. 

Having signed up less than a month ago I real regreat choicing Square, utter rubbish platform and will now have to look at moving again to somewhere else. I have zero faith that square listen or respect their customers, if after 4 months they haven't reworked coupons and made them functional.

If coupons not reworked by the end of Feb 25 I will have to look elsewhere and leave this platform.