Discounts Product Team Q&A: Ask us anything about Discounts!

[Tom]

On October 27th, 2021, our Discounts product team hosted a Q&A focused on sellers who use Point of Sale, Square for Retail, Square for Restaurants, Appointments, and Invoices.

We're aware that many sellers have questions and requests related to setting up discounts within the mobile app as well as the online Square Dashboard. We appreciated learning about what's going well and where there is room for improvement. We can't share out specific details on our product roadmaps, though we will certainly make sure all of the posts that came through on this thread are incorporated into the decision process. 

A few example questions:

• What's the best way to set up a discount for a limited time sale?
• What's the best way to manage my discounts if I have multiple product bundle offerings?
• I need a discount that does "______" — what is your best suggestion?
• I wish I had "______" reporting for my discounts.

[kwoodlock]

Hi @OLW ,

Unfortunately, Invoices does not offer the ability to exclude any line items from being discounted in a sale. However, you may be able to use Service Charges on your invoice to represent your shipping fee, and it will not be discounted along with the items. Read more on how to create service charge.

[OLW]

Thank you Kyle, I will check that out. Sounds like a good solution. 👍🏻👍🏻

[Candlestore]

I have quantity based discounts in Squares Retail POS.  When I sell one candle the price is $14.99.... 2 go to $12 dollars each and 3 go to $11 dollars each.  This happens automatically as I scan in my items.  Even if I scan in an item or 2 or 3 that are not in the category of items to get the applied discount.  Here is a link on how to setup a quantity based discount.

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6603-discounts-faqs 

From Squares Virtual Terminal

On my Ipad Stand it shows the discount right under the item.  The way I have it setup 3 candles for $33 and 2 for $24 by exact amount if the person would buy 6 candles they would get 2 sets of 3 for $33 per set or $66 for 6 of the 16 oz candles.  I did this sample to show you the 2 discounts applied at the same time and before sales tax.

[divyar]

Hi @Mlsmith1,

I am not sure I understood your use case well. When you want the discount to be taken out of a specific item and not a cart level, are you looking to exclude some other items in the cart from discounting or is this more of a presentation improvement? Usually when attempting multiple discounts, as explained by you, quantity based auto discounts might work better. (Learn more how to).

[HideawaySD]

What's the status on discounts for APPOINTMENTS!?? As in discounts that can be put into the booking process by the guest?! 

"Use PromoCode BLACKFRIDAY and get 10% off your service" sort of thing. Even just very very basic (well recognize there would need to be discount attributes but Booker (now MindBody) let us create any combination of promocode that was valid for a certain timeframe, on certain services, etc etc.)!

If Appointments can't/wont' ever support a promocode/discount code then how the heck should us service providers (Appointment-based Businesses) run promotions efficiently?

[divyar]

Hi @HideawaySD, 

Thank you for your feedback. Promo codes now work in appointments but are restricted for the seller to input the code. I have shared this feedback with my colleague on the appointments team.

[getBackOnCourse]

Hi Divyar! Thanks for your response. Does the code have to be created in the Discounts section of the Items menu? How/where does the seller input the code? 

[Speedgraphic]

Sometimes my customers make errors in their ordering process, and I need to issue some money back to cover the difference in an upcharge that can't be performed for whatever reason.  What's the status on a proper store credit system so that you can easily assign a dollar value of built in credit to each customer without dealing with cumbersome e-gift cards?  I believe this has been a feature request for more than 5 years...

[kwoodlock]

Hi @Speedgraphic,

Thank you for your feedback. We are currently working on an improved refund to e-Gift Card experience that should be available in the coming months. Store credit is a feature that is on the radar of our point of sale teams.

[TheVanityStoreL]

How do I edit a price of an item to apply a discount specifically to that item in the middle of a transaction?

[LONDONCALLINGBR]

Yeah that's what I need, to be able to click on one item in an order as I'm ringing it in and apply a custom discount off that item instead of having to select one of the discounts I already keyed into the discounts area of the POS app. The ones I have pre saved are never the amount I actually want at the time so it would be great to be able to select an item, add a custom discount, and then continue with the rest of the bill as normal so that on the receipt it would say Item X, discount $2... Item Y

[filletandbone]

Totally agree!  There is the ability to set up a variable £ discount for the bill/ticket total but it doesn't appear when you tap on an individual item - just the fixed %age discounts.  Would love this function.

[divyar]

Hi @LONDONCALLINGBR,

Have you tried variable amount discounts? You should be able to enter the discount amount at the time of checkout. It is possible to do so at a cart level as of now.

[kwoodlock]

Hi @TheVanityStoreL ,

Can you help us understand your use case/workflow better? What is the main motivation behind changing the item price during checkout, and why do you want to use a discount to do it? For receipt, reporting purposes, or other?

[augustalan]

I have always thought that it would be great to be able to offer discounts on modifiers only. Are there any suggestions on how to offer a discount on modifiers for example, get a free flavor in your latte? The only way I've been able to figure that out is to manually adjust the cost of the modifiers for the time frame of the discount.

[kwoodlock]

Hi @augustalan,

Thank you for the feedback! We haven't planned any work to allow discounts on modifiers only. Can you share more detail on your use case? Does it apply only to a particular flavor of syrup on any given day? Are you trying to clear inventory, drive sales, or both?

A possible workaround would be to create two different modifiers for each syrup, like "Vanilla" for $0.50 and "Vanilla (Free)" for $0.00 and tap the appropriate one. If this is not a useful workaround, can you describe what's missing?

[augustalan]

We use modifiers pretty heavily and could use a few different tweaks to that functionality to really unlock the full value (ex. modifier quantities, collapsable modifier categories, better modifier reporting) but for this use case we are a coffee shop so we add espresso, flavors, or milk as items with extra cost. My goal would be to have days or even times of the day where we offer a customization for free to incentivize people to try to find their new favorite drink. I believe the concept would be to incentivize new customer behaviors to increase our average transaction so driving sales would be the goal.

If we were able to apply modifiers to sets of categories at a time without an export/import of products then I could see creating a second modifier set as a potential solution. As it stands we would have to spend a lot of time customizing modifiers for a short period. It would also mess up reporting on modifier sales.

[kwoodlock]

Hi @augustalan,

Thanks for that added info. That sounds like a great idea for a business, get them to try new things with a discount so they'll come back later at full price when they love it.

And the reason you want to only have the free modifier appearing for a limited duration, rather than just always having a paid and a free version of each modifier... Is that because you just don't want to take up all that extra space in the modifier UI during checkout? Because you want to prevent human error where the cashier adds a free modifier when they shouldn't (or doesn't add a free one when they should)?

The reporting point is also a great one. Would be useful for you to see the promotion appearing as a discount and be able to track its performance without messing up normal sales reporting.

We'll take this feedback and evaluate it as a feature!

[augustalan]

The extra space is a big one because we are already scrolling but it is also something that we want to avoid giving employees chances to choose the wrong modifier. I don't want to call it human error because they would intentionally use the wrong one for friends.

This convo has given me some thoughts on ways to work out how to better use modifiers and discounts so I appreciate the time dialoguing about this.

[byakki]

(regarding online discounts) Would it be possible for a customer to enter their discount code before entering all of their shipping info? Also, will automatic discounts be available in the near future (such as quantity-based discounts, free shipping after a certain amount, etc)?

[divyar]

HI @byakki,

Discounts don’t yet fully sync between Square Online and Square’s main Item Library, but we’re working on this. Free shipping should be available in Square online. Try Online > Fulfillment > Shipping > Add Shipping Rate > Select Free Shipping.