WooCommerce sync questions

[bitofwow]

Hi, 

I have a small but growing e-commerce shop and also sell on other venues such as Etsy and Amazon. I use an inventory sync service to sync my inventory between those channels.

I plan to start attending some craft shows/gift fairs this year and am setting up Square with WooCommerce as it has the ability to sync inventory when someone makes a purchase in person.

However, this initial sync concerns me and I want to make sure I set it up properly.

Here are my concerns:

1. Choosing WooCommerce vs Square as the source.

Currently, I would think I would opt for WooCommerce as the source as inventory there gets updated from other sources and then would get updated in Square. But, then, what happens when I start to sell in person? Will the inventory which get decreased in Square when an item is sold get pushed the other way to update in WooCommerce? Would I set the sync the opposite way before I go to an event?

2. Multiple SKU variants

When syncing some items with Square for the first time, I got the message that some items had multiple variants attributes (or something like that) and could not be synced.  What to do in this case?

3. What if I have two WooCommerce sites? Suppose most of the inventory is different but a few products are on both sites with the same SKU. They already get synced. Is setting up Square on both sites going to cause an issue?

4. For WooCommerce, I've been using WooCommerce Payments. That adds a Google and Apple Pay option. Is this an option with Square as well with the WooCommerce integration?

Thanks

Cheryl

[ryanwanner]

Hello @bitofwow /Cheryl!

It's been a little while since I've banged around with my Woo integration, but I believe that I can help with most of your questions (and please understand that a few of these items may have been fixed since I set up my site...)

1. If you're only planning on Woo for your inventory, then I'd definitely recommend having Woo be the inventory source. I do in-store sales plus my Woo site, and I've had nothing but troubles with inventory syncing when Woo was the source. Definitely make Square be the source. I recommend doing it now on initial sync versus later on: a lot less headache.

2. Woo allows for variations and attributes that Square does not offer, which is why you're getting this sync error. Square can handle variations relatively well, but the attributes are where things are hanging up. Woo handles attributes more like sub-variations instead of modifiers, so Square can't handle it. To tie in with #1, I recommend building your item library in Square, setting Square to be the inventory source, then importing your item library to Woo instead of creating the items in Woo. That way you know that the sync can happen. This does limit Woo's capabilities, but short of disabling the inventory sync there's no way around it right now.

3. This one I'm not entirely sure about, but I think that multiple Woo sites would be similar to multiple locations in Square. Items can be shared and synced over multiple spots, but Square's limitation is that inventory is set on a per location level: any shared inventory between two locations will have to have its own inventory count per location.

4. Yes Google Pay and Apple Pay are available options through the Square integration. Once you have the integration enabled, go to WooCommerce -> Settings -> Payments. Scroll down to Square, click Manage, then scroll down to Enable Digital Wallets and follow the config steps. One note on this that took me FOREVER to figure out: with ApplePay in the Square integration, if you look at your site from a non-apple device, you will not see the ApplePay button even though it looks like it's configured correctly. The ApplePay button will only show up on apple devices.

I hope this helps!

[bitofwow]

Yes it does help. Thanks for the quick response. 

I do primarily online sales but the reason I'm enabling Square is so that I can sometimes do events and still have it sync inventory. If I DO have Woo as my inventory source and then make a transaction with the Square card reader will the sync still work that way to decrease my WooCommerce inventory by one? If it syncs both ways that would be ideal with Woo as the source because I have other sales channels that my WooCommerce shop is connected to.

I'm just worried that if I made Square the inventory source and then make a sale that's on another venue than my WooCommerce site that's connected to it, but not to Square, it won't update my inventory. If that makes any sense.

I'll have to make some adjustments to variations. My item library is already created in WooCommerce and I don't want to redo:(  Though, going forward, I'll look at creating new items in Square.

Cheryl