Cross Location Orders Fulfillment

[Richmenlooks]

We currently have 2 locations and have split inventory between both stores. Our online store is growing very fast and we want to be able to fulfill orders from both locations depending on which location has it available. Is this possible?

[_Violet]

Hi @Richmenlooks - Thanks for reaching out to us here on the Square Seller Community👋

At this time, the ability to split Inventory for Square Online Store is a feature request. To accomplish this currently, you would need to have two locations set up on the Square Dashboard and set up the stock tracking on each location for your items, and allocate the stock per location.

 To learn more about how feature requests work, please see this post from one of our Seller Community Moderators. 

In the meantime, keep an eye out for any updates in our Seller Community. We appreciate your input! 🙂

[Richmenlooks]

The stock tracking is on at both locations so we can track exactly what we have at each store. Both locations are high traffic stores. I do not see how "allocating the stock per location" would benefit us in accurate inventory tracking/reporting if we keep moving items back and forth just so it can be visible online. Our stores are also in 2 different states, so it is not an easy drive to move physical inventory quickly.

This "workaround" adds a lot of manual work and inaccurate reporting which just doesn't sit well with us. I hope Square can add this feature ASAP. 

[wtdLani]

Hi @Richmenlooks 

You are describing why my company has been unable to use Square Online, weebly (or any of the SQ marketplace ecommerce solutions) for our website.   After 5 years they still have not figured out how to connect the inventories from our two locations (one NY, one LA) so that if you have 3 widgets in LA and 5 in NY -- the system sees 8 widgets -- and if you sell out in one location, the system knows you still have widgets in your other location -- and therefore a client who is shopping online is able to get the widget.

It's sad.   It's like trying to explain e-commerce to my chihuahua.  

We are using Shopify -- which ironically has almost the complete opposite problem.   Shopify definitely sees the inventory for both locations -- but we cannot give clients the option to view ALL or limit what they see to only what is locally available.   (If it is possible -- so far we have not been able to figure it out.)   We sell shoes and sometimes our clients are happy to wait for shipping -- and other times a show needs to know/wants to see ONLY what they can pickup today.

Regarding SQ -- we keep checking periodically to see if they have finally fixed this (and other things) -- but sadly 5 years and counting -- so we are no longer holding our breath.

We have tested SQ online a few times -- and we were very hopeful during our most recent test 3 weeks ago because this time we saw that the website did recognize that Location A has 3 widgets and Location B had 5 widgets -- but SQ as @richmenlooks clearly understands -- SQ doesn't seem to believe that a business is willing or able to ship from BOTH locations ...

[Anthem]

This is a great conversation and while different from one I wrestle with it is similar in SQ having a hard time working with multiple location outfits whether those locations are tangible or online.  

This topic is exacerbated when you take it to a franchise model with multiple locations. Things like gift cards, coupons, marketing emails, loyalty, menu items, and more need to be actively to all locations for continuity and quality customer experiences. Not having the ability to do these things is limiting and cumbersome for the business owner and reduces the quality experience businesses want to offer customers. 

Feature requests are a great start, feeling like they’ve been seen and heard is key to keeping sellers in a space where they are willing to continue using the tool.