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.

[PetCentral]

I am looking for a member discount for my pet store, I would like to offer a discount to Rewards Members only on things like buy 10 of this products or service and get this discount on the 11th.

Scanable discounts like manufacturer coupons would be a great add on as well.

[divyar]

Hi @PetCentral,

Redeeming a discount over multiple sale transactions is not yet supported. We do support the manufacturer coupons use case but not as a scannable feature. Would like to understand more on why the scanning part becomes important for you.

[Studio1883]

I realize this is an old thread, but I want to address why scanning a discount code is important.  I have a coupon in  a local paper that gives a discount based on the purchase . I have 2 different coupons presently .... Buy 5 get 1 free and $5 off a $35 purchase. Were I applying this discount to all purchases, this would be easy. However currently it is quite time consuming for my employees to go in an find the items and apply the discount. This is a feature I see requested over and over on these boards for at least the past 6 years and keep hoping it will be implemented, but it doesnt. Honestly, its a point that has made me consider changing my POS as we grow larger. 

[DM19]

I can't speak for the pet store, but we have several different coupons that we use in different advertising mediums.  If we could scan the coupons, we would be able to set up different codes for the different sources of advertising we use.  This will allow us to determine where to spend our advertising dollars.  In addition, it will allow better accuracy, quicker check out and an all around better customer experience.

[Candlestore]

For this you would want to set up a Quantity discount as described in the video attached.  I have this type of setup for my by 12 get one Free and it works great.

I also have it setup for another category that if you buy 2 the price drops and if 3 of these are bought price drops again.  Buy 1 at $15, 2 for $12.50 each, buy 3 for $11 each.

her is the video from Square:

Square Discounts 

[GourmetOnWheels]

How do on POS do I give a 100% Discount for Giftcards at $25.00 for lapsed customers and $50.00 for returning top 10 customers for the holidays?

René 

[divyar]

Hi @GourmetOnWheels, 

Thank you for your feedback. While we cannot share the release date, we are working to make auto discounts apply on gift cards.

[GourmetOnWheels]

@divyar I m not looking for auto discounts. I want to use some of my gift cards to entice lapsed customers to come back by snail-mailing them a $25.00 gift card and by the end of the year I will give my top 15 customers a $50.00 gift card.

But if I load the gift card with 25.00 or 50.00. And there is no 100% discount.

It will be a sale, but I will give it for free so it is not a sale

[allwhowander]

@GourmetOnWheels Are you asking how to run a "free" physical gift card through the system? If so, you ring it up like normal for whatever amount you want, apply 100% off and hit "Charge $0.00" on the POS. It still has whatever value you loaded it for. We use this for any customer service issues we are trying to make right.

[GourmetOnWheels]

Tried on my iPhone but does not work

Thanks for looking into it for me

René

[sweetaroma]

How do we apply a discount to the same order more than once?  We own a coffeehouse and we sell reusable travel cups.  If the customer brings their cup back, we give them a $0.25 discount off their drink and often times 2 or more people in the same party bring their cups back.  We can only apply the $0.25 discount once even though they are using 3 different cups to purchase 3 different drinks and therefore we should be taking the discount off 3 times.

[VanKalkerFarms]

What I have setup for something similar is multiple versions of the discount.  Like 1 mug discount $.25, 2 mug discount $.50, 3 mug discount $.75, etc and choose the right discount.

[divyar]

Hi @sweetaroma, 

Thank you for sharing your use case with us. The solution suggested by @VankalkerFarms is a great one. You can also set up this rule using our item or quantity based auto discounts. You might have to set up a different item name as ‘bring-your-own-cup’ coffee. Another work around is variable discount amount which will allow you to enter the discount amount during checkout. Learn more about how to set up quantity discounts.

[Donnie-M]

I would love to have a discount that allows us to have a conditional discount similar to quick service establishments that lets us do discounts when people add 2 different categories of items to the cart like a combo.  (Burger, fries, drink)

Second wish would be a discount that applies to the previous item only versus having to go to the bottom of the item screen and deselect a global discount.  Similar to making a flag to make an item "immune" to discounts.

Donnie-M

[divyar]

Hi @Donnie-M,

Thank you for your feedback! Sellers have specially asked for the combo discounts feature to set up pricing rules. For example - a burger and fries in combo will have a discounted price of X dollars. Is your use-case similar to this? 

For the second wish, are you looking to exempt a specific item from discounting? If so, this is on our roadmap.

[All4Kids]

Is there a way to make a product not qualify for any discounts? 

[divyar]

Hi @all4kids,

We do not have a way to exempt a specific item from discounting. Updates to this feature are on our roadmap. Sellers have often asked this feature for items that have smaller margins. Would say that is the driving motivator here as well?

[Ninjarita]

I am hoping you can address timed discounts for Square online. We don't have a open store front and need to have a timed happy hour from 3-4pm so that the 3pm staff aren't bored. 

[allwhowander]

Agreed 👍

[divyar]

Hi @ninjarita,

Discounts don’t yet fully sync between Square Online and Square’s main Item Library, but we’re working on this. Curious - if you are looking at this feature as a discounting rule or a coupon feature?

[JUYBoutique20]

I would love to create a discount that takes the items automatically to unit cost.