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.

[PatriceNicole]

How do you add discounts through the invoice app? 

[lihui]

Hi @PatriceNicole,

Auto discounts do not sync to Invoices App. But you can create and apply manual discounts. To create a discount, try More > Items > Discounts. To apply a discount, you will find the discount come up when you click on Add Item while creating the invoice.

Thanks!

[Igg]

Is there any way to make it so that the tip percentage/amount options reflect the total BEFORE discount? 

As the business owner I am happy to offer great deals to my customers.

However, when tip percentages are calculated after discounts, as in current Square point of sale setup, my employees suffer unintended consequences of their tip pay reduced.

Most people enjoy convenience of just clicking the 20% option. 

Considering that it is customary and good manner to calculate gratuities of non-discounted prices, allowing the gratuities to be calculated on non-discounted prices would not only make logical sense but would be much appreciated by anyone who ever worked in the service industries.

[kwoodlock]

Hi @Igg,

This is a great feature suggestion. I will forward it along to our team that owns the checkout flow, including the Smart Tips options.

[belvisoscs]

We are new to Square and we came across this issue as we set up the business. I would consider a glitch, as employees suffer unintended consequences of their tip pay being reduced. We have seen this question/change request coming from community members on posts dated 2017 (5 years ago). Perhaps Square's engineering would put this change request in a higher priority?

[Imag3]

This may or may not have been brought up. There’s a lot of info in here so, I apologize if it’s redundant. 

I run a photography business and it’s all done online. My customers prepay and once they do, there’s no way to include a discount before or after the prepayment. I always have to end up giving a partial refund. Why can’t this simple thing be implemented? Especially in today’s pandemic era. There’s also no way to adjust someone’s prepayment before accepting it. I understand maybe not adding additional money but sometimes the order needs to be adjusted, hence the pricing. It’s very inconvenient. These issues have lingered for years. Wonder if and when they will finally be addressed.

[LONDONCALLINGBR]

Can't you use tickets? I use that to build an order for someone who messages or calls before they come into the shop. And if they change something or I discount something, I can change that in the ticket, up until the point where they pay and it's closed off as paid. Not sure how that ties into the pre payment aspect. 

[akmatthews]

Hi @Imag3,

While we can decrease a transaction's price between authorization and capture, we aren't able to keep the transaction in this unfinished state long enough for the seller to manually modify and accept it.

So, the discount must be applied before the seller checks out. One option might be using Coupons: from your Square Online dashboard, go to Items > Coupons and add a coupon code, then give that code to your buyers to use before they check out to apply the discount.

[BofBArtStudio]

1.  The ability to prevent stacked discounts

2. The ability to set or disable certain items or categories that are never allowed to be included in discounts.

3. Calculate tips on the subtotal prior to discounts

4. Choose items or categories that a specific discount applies to when using manual discounts.  

Thank you!!

[akmatthews]

Hi @BofBArtStudio

Thank you for sharing these feature requests. Updates to some of these features are on our roadmap!

[Skatecenter]

I would like to be able to offer the same discount multiple times in one sale. We offer group rates and it would be nice to sell one group 50 admissions and then apply, for instance, $2 off each. Can we do something like that now, or is that in the works?  Thank you, we love using square!

[akmatthews]

Hi @Skatecenter

This sounds like an ideal use case for quantity based auto-discounts. Learn more about how to set up quantity discounts here.

We also offer variable-priced discounts. They can be created on Dashboard, then are manually applied at the time of checkout on your POS. With this feature, you could apply a $100 discount to the order. 

Can you tell us more about how and where you’re offering these group rates?

[Skatecenter]

The auto discounts are appied to everyone all day, most of our customers would not be able to use this discount. 

Example:

Skate $9.50

Rental $4.50

add Play Zone $4.50

Total $18.50 no discount

Next customer, family of 4, no discount, combination of Skating, Play Zone, Rental and laser tag, everyone doing something a little different, no discount

Prebooked group of 14 comes in, they should receive $3 off per person.  Cashier hits the same buttons they do all day, lots of possible combinations, but this time, we apply our $3 off 14 times.

A group of 75 gets a better discount than a group of 18.  

Right now, we have to create an item for every discount in every possible price for skating, rental, Play Zone and Laser Tag.

I'm wondering if I could create a negative price in an item somehow?

[akmatthews]

Hi Skatecenter.

A few questions:
1. Does the pre-booked group pay in separate transactions or all together?

2. Do the groups choose any combination of activities? Or, for the group of 14, does every person get the same group of activities?

[Skatecenter]

Hi Matthew,

Your first question is a perfect example.  We may have a group of say, 20 made up of 5 families.  They may only pay for 3 or 4 people of the group, but they should still receive the discount.  They usually have different combinations of activities.

I wasn't completely paying attention to your first suggestion of quantity discounts.  I am playing with that and it will help when the group pays together.  I just need to work around the example that I just mentioned.

Thank you, I did not see the quantity discount before!

[Skatecenter]

I just tried to make an Item with a negative value, but it just saves as variable.  I think if I could make a negative price for an item, that may be a workaround for me.

[bobalove]

1. Is there a way to see whose Employee Passcode was used to apply restrictive discounts?

2. Is there a way to have Items/Categories excluded from ANY/ALL discounts?

3. Is there a way to prevent discounts from stacking for 1 item?

[akmatthews]

Hi @bobalove, 

Thanks for this feature list! We’ve been hearing that these are a need and are looking into them. 

1. Unfortunately, we don’t currently support this type of reporting.
2. and 3. are on our roadmap.

[WakefieldBlaze]

I want to be able to do a bundle of individual products that keeps stock control of the individual items but gives a bundle price. EG item 1, 3 and 5 together for 40 but still their unique pricing outside of this. Can’t find a way without creating a new bundle item which seems to break the stock control side 

[akmatthews]

Hi @WakefieldBlaze
 

Thanks for this. We’ve heard similar requests for a feature like combo pricing. We are working on it. Would love to hear more on your refunds workflow for this use case, can you tell us more?

[GraniteOak]

How do I get a discount to work with appointments?