Sub Categories For Square for Retail

[Candlestore]

I know people have been asking for this for awhile and it keeps getting pushed aside, even Square just says Modifiers and Variations should be enough.  The problem is finding the item again when you do not have a SKU to scan to search for the item to change something.  Square can do this for online but not for Square for Retail? 

https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Square-for-Retail-Discussion/Departments-or-Sub-Categories/m-p/19... 

https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Square-Point-of-Sale-app/Sub-Categories/idi-p/364170 

and Just asked AGAIN:

https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Square-for-Retail-Discussion/Option-to-create-subcategories-in-SR... 

I mean I have Candles

Main categories   Scented or unScented

next Level Sub Category 1 Type of Candle   Jar or Free Standing

Next Sub Category  Jar Sizes or Free Standing Size

[TCSlaguna]

Hey @Candlestore 

I would love to learn how sub-categories would be beneficial? Would you like to see reports based on those sub-categories? Would it integrate with Square Online to make product search easier? 

Definitely see value in having sub-categories. 

[Candlestore]

I do not use Square Online, Sub Categories would be beneficial when having to search for an item that the barcode fell off of.

Candles

  Scented vs Unscented

       Jars vs Pillars

It also makes it easier to find on the Desktop app without having the item in front of you to scan

Also makes it easier to look up for a custom category of Location to see how many I have in stock 

Maybe others that have also asked for this might give more insight too.  

[MayaP]

Hi @Candlestore ,

Thank you so much for providing all that insight! 

Sub Categories For Square for Retail is definitely a discussion among the Retail Product Team. But at this moment we do not have an ETA, or any additional information on if or when this feature would be rolled out. Please keep providing your insight and encouraging other merchants to as well on this thread. 

I wish I had some more information for you now.  But if anything changes with this feature we will be sure to update this thread. We are always appreciative of your input! 

[SuesSweets]

modifiers and variations are not sufficient to organize the 1000s of items in my candy store.  I am forced to create more categories then to do end of month analysis, I have to create the upper level category in the spreadsheet after I export items from Square.  Subcategories would have saved me this extra step. 
The other use case is for the square register display: if a barcode fails to find the item, then our staff have to look through the long list of items in each category.  Often they can't find it and just enter the item as a generic 'non-upc' item that I have to resolve at the next inventory.  

I also have a clothing store that uses lightspeed.  Guess what? they have subcategories (and modifiers and variations).  The lack of subcategories is a gap.  

[Adamscottsmith]

I agree that sub categories would be extremely helpful. As a liquor store, we have Beer as a category, but if I could have a sub as import ipa or domestic etc  that would be helpful. 

right now my solution is a 3rd party integration that can do sub categories but not exactly sure how this will work yet. If all else fails, it will be Beer - Domestic etc makes adding new items a pain too

[KimsBooks]

We are a Gift and Book Store. I'm sure that you can imagine how useful sub categories would be for books. Children's books, series, fiction, non fiction, reference etc. Please know that this would allow us to list our products as well as find our products much more efficiently.

[HotSpot]

Having a Sub Category for reporting would be very handy. Having a category like "Liquor" as the "reporting category" with the ability to add subcategories like "whiskey" "Vodka" & again with the Size "750ml "375ml", would make for very useful reports and even for ordering product purposes. With a liquor store, there are just so many items, ways to break down items into smaller groups is needed. This would then translate into a much cleaner website flow being able to divide up products way more efficiently then how you currently have to select every item you want. If I want to see what wine varietal is selling best, I shouldn't have to physically sort each item in the list to pick out the top selling "Cabs". 

Modifiers and variations are useless to a liquor store, and on top of that, make any form of doing bulk item updates impossible because the spreadsheets never upload properly. I've tried to utilize them to make sense for the business, I'm yet to find a way they work well enough.

[Candlestore]

@MayaP ;

Just saw this post and thought if the person had Sub Categories, they could export their transaction and use a spreadsheet to sort them.  Lets us business owners have better stats on what Sells and what does not sell.  

here is the Post:

Categorizing transactions after the sale.

Can anyone explain to me why, as a business owner that I can't categorize my transactions after the sale is made?  This is to the point that I am about to move away from Square.

[Candlestore]

I have been trying to setup Square Loyalty and I see you can have Categories for a Loyalty but I can not have a Option or Variation as a Loyalty Item or Reward.  

Meaning I have 150 different Scents of candles in 18 plus sizes.   I had my items set up by size but every time I added a new scent I had to create it 18 times for Each category.  Someone suggested using the option Feature built into Square and use the Size for the Options in the Option set.   This is great for making all the New sizes quick and easy.  BUT now when I tried the loyalty program for my 28oz jars..... I can not do it.    If I could have made the Options go into a Sub Category that would solve this head ache..... again back to sub categories is needed for different tracking of Items for discounts or rewards in the loyalty program.  Maybe even have the Option be able to also be in a Category by itself but tracked by the SKU.  

Currently to use the Options feature my Item is my Scent, options are the 18 sizes, 6 jar sizes and 12 pillar sizes.  My discount and rewards are currently only set for my 28oz Jar candles and no one can help me get a work around for doing this.  So even with all the requests through the years for this feature, I see it is still not planned.   Maybe someone at Square can inform me how to do this since so far no one in the forum has been able to.   The best work around was what I had before being told to use Option sets....   ANY IDEAS anyone?

[cscstore]

We run a retail clothing store, so we have to deal with various SKUs and inventory reports.

It would be convenient if we had Sub Categories to better organize the way we view our inventory reports to make projections for restocking, as well as organizing our in-person registers to find items.
We can place our items with option variations and modifiers under

Example would be:

• Main Category (Ex. Men's Clothing)
  • Sub Category (Ex. Men's Pants)
    • Sub Category (Ex. Brand Name)
      • Item Name/Style
        • Size Variation
        • Color Variation
        • Additional Modifiers.

The subcategories could also be searched to find all existing items existing within them.

Example for this would be:

• Search
  • Sub Category (Ex. Brand Name)
    • Brand Name Pants
    • Brand Name Shirts
    • Brand Name Accessories

We would be able to easily find an item on our POS Devices or in Reports by organizing everything through a hierarchy.
It's inconvenient having to either decide one thing like a brand or style dictating an entire category.

• We either choose "Men's Pants" or "Dickies Pants" for a category.
• If we want both, we create both which results in extra clutter.

We would highly encourage the Square team to consider adding this feature.