Meet Our Square Online Team: How can we improve Square Online?

[Tom]

Hello Seller Community! On July 22nd from 10:00 – 11:00am PT, we hosted a Q&A within this thread where Square Online sellers had the opportunity to post about improvements they'd like to see with regard to features and services.

@Justin_N is a product specialist with the Square Online team and @AdamB is a community manager with extensive Square Online product experience. Together, they lead the session focused on how we can improve Square Online features. Learn more about Square Online.

We would love to know more about sellers' experiences with:

• Tasks related to Square Online which take you way too much time to complete.
• Tasks related to your online business which you simply cannot complete today with Square Online.

We will summarize your questions and responses about your “tasks” in a follow-up post soon!

Note on account-specific questions: For your privacy and security, we are not able to address issues related to specific account status details in our public forums. If you need account assistance, please contact our Customer Success team and they'll be able to take a deeper dive.

[Justin_N]

Hey @renees! Thanks for posting today!

Regarding iframes, you should be able to use these today within the Embed Code section of your website editor.

I appreciate the suggestion of ultimately creating the opportunity for the header / landing areas of our websites to be more dynamic. I’ll be sure to bring this up with the team! One question for you is, beyond what you’ve already shared, what other aspects of the older Weebly experience do you wish to see in the newer Square Online experience?

[Sweeties]

Hello Square, 

     Online order text notification to my phone not just customers.

[Justin_N]

Hey there @Sweeties!

Thanks for being here today! Would you mind going into more detail on which events (during the process of an order) you’d like to be notified of? What would be your preferred methods of being contacted? Thanks in advance!

[Sweeties]

Hi, I would like a text message option to my phone of new orders placed online when they are placed. I receive an email but a text option is immediate and can’t be missed. 

[Archie1]

Hello,

Team: it would be amazing if be able to have comments. notes or journal to keep track. maybe eval sheets. also a way to store documents related to emp. like i9 or food handlers. Scheduling based on sales.. you know when we have sales on a given day, you even know the best sales persons .. having the good days and the good emp working together would help. Employee messaging. open shift/ replacement shift assistance. 

A way to set up delivery companies with a set price increase or deduction at the time of payment. to correct the actual sales and fix the sales tax. (if you sell it for 100.00, but door dash sells it for 130.00 they pay you for the 100.00 but the system see the sale as 130.00 and so does the tax man)

auto tax reporting. you already have access to everything you need.. how about the tax goes out and you file it.. wow what a time saver

inventory that does purchasing, notifications, kits or combinations (recipes ). 

better assistance with Facebook interrogation, mine works, says it does't and no one can help me.. like send me to them they send me back

[AdamB]

Regarding your Facebook integration, @Archie1 , are you saying that it’s working correctly but looks as though it isn’t within your dashboard? Or is it the reverse of that?

[Archie1]

that is correct it shows "connect" and then you press it and it goes to facebook.. and then you get error. but in facebook it seems to be working

[Justin_N]

Hello @Archie1, welcome to the discussion!

First, thank you for the feedback on Square Team and the opportunity for Square to help more when it comes to taxes! There are some excellent points in here!

Your point about inventory combinations is a great one, too. It really comes down to adequately “bundling” different items together, which is something that I know we can do a better job of. Could you tell me more about how your business would use a kit/combination/bundling feature?

Thanks in advance, and I look forward to getting your feedback to our team!

[Archie1]

sure we buy meat and we buy spices. we sell the meat with spices.  (it would be nice to have a purchasing system) i might be meat 6ox and 2 oz of spice to make the item that is for sale

[pessosices]

Thanks @Tom and @Justin_N and @AdamB 

1. Conditional Modifiers - being able to change the modifiers or conditions for the modifiers when different Variations are chosen. So if a customer selects a 1 Scoop variation, the modifier for flavor will only let them choose 1 flavor, but if they choose a 3 Scoop variation, it would let them choose up to 3 flavors.

2. Order Level Questions/Items - We definitely need an option that will ask if they want utensils on an order level for every order. There are a bunch of other great use cases for this too!

Thanks

Pesso

[GWTS]

THIS WOULD BE A GREAT OPTION AVAILABLE.

MY CUSTOMERS HAVE THE ABILITY TO CHOOSE SLAW OR TOTS AS A SIDE.  WITH TOTS I GIVE THEM THE ABILITY TO ADD CHEESE, MEAT OR OTHER VARIOUS TOPPINGS BUT WHEN THEY CHOOSE SLAW THEY STILL HAVE THOSE OPTIONS AVAILABLE TO ORDER WHICH AS A CUSTOMER I WOULD NOT WANT TO HAVE TO LOOK AT (SCROLL THRU) IF I SELECTED SLAW.   I THINK I READ THAT THIS IS AVAILABLE IF I HAD SQUARE FOR RESTAURANT SOFTWARE BUT AS A FOOD TRUCK THIS OPTION IS TOO COSTLY TO CHOOSE FOR THE FEW ITEMS I COULD USE

[Justin_N]

Hello again, @GWTS! Thank you for the use-case here for “conditional modifiers”. We really appreciate the time you’ve taken in sharing your thoughts here with us today!

[Justin_N]

Nice to see you again, @pessosices.  Thanks for hanging out!

I love the idea of the creation of rules that guide behavior between variations and modifiers enabling concepts like “conditional modifiers”. Great feedback! Do you have other examples of how your business would use such a thing?

Your second point is essentially around customizing checkout with questions / options (kind of like order-level modifiers), correct? I’m really interested in hearing the other use-cases you see for this! Thanks for your time!

[pessosices]

Thanks @Justin_N !

For conditional modifiers, I could do things like add a modifier group for the purchase of squeeze cups or a scooper if they order a pint. 

For order level questions, I could I could ask about utensils or napkins or adding a gift card or other high profit items to tack onto the sale, similar to how business put things by the register in-store.

Those are about it for my business, but a lot of other businesses would have other applications. I know I both of these features exist on UberEATS, so I’d recommend scrolling through businesses and restaurants on there to see how other folks are using those features. 

I know some restaurants do meal combos, so you can pick 1 appetizer and 2 entree, and depending on which one of each you pick, you can then pick sides specific to each of those, along with meat temperature, and so much more. 

[JUYBoutique20]

• I think it's time for Square online to make it possible for us to offer our customers sezzle or any of the other buy now pay later options.  
• We also should have a way to set alerts to come to our phone when an online order is placed.  Yes I have the app downloaded and alerts are turned on but it doesn't make a sound when I get an online order.  
• I would also like to be able to input an event announcement without having to put it in my inventory.

[Justin_N]

Thanks for the post, @JUYBoutique20!

We hear you clearly on the importance of “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) to enable buyers to purchase items when, without it, they’d be more-likely to abandon the cart. My question here is, of the available BNPL providers (you mentioned Sezzle), do you have a preference? If yes, why?

With regards to the “order notification sounds”, is it specifically the sound that you’re not getting or are you not getting any type of notification at all? I’m also curious about any thoughts you may have on the need to have more-granular options around sounds (such as, being able to select a sound per fulfillment type).

Thank you for participating today and I’m looking forward to hearing more!

[JUYBoutique20]

When I can open the app it tells me I have an order, but no notification sound. Here lately I'm having issues with the app not letting me log in or giving me an 500 server error message. Yes I would love to be able to choose a sound when an order is place.  I don't really care per fulfilment type.  Affirm, After-Pay, and Sezzle are the three my other business friends use...I feel either of the services would be great for business.

[CSmith519]

I totally agree with this as well I am constantly getting asked if I over any of these and loose sales because I don’t 

[photobangbang]

My business is a photo studio, so I have addons for the bookings, but these are not visible to the customer online. I would like for customers to be able to add light and prop rental when they are booking the appointment in a more streamlined fashion. I like Donnie's suggestion above, in regards to an "if this then that" booking flow. 

Also, when using the new online booking interface, I would like to be able to break the items up into different sections or groups. For example, Studio Rentals, Extras, Crew, etc. Right now, its all one big list and there's not much configuring available, other than re-arranging the order of items. Even a line break or sub headings would be useful. 

[Justin_N]

Welcome, @photobangbang! Thanks for joining in today!

Your feedback about some of the shortcomings of the bookings integration are well-taken and greatly appreciated! It’s also very helpful to know that the “if this then that” flow would be appreciated in this area of the product as well! Would you mind sharing any other points of friction when it comes to booking via Square Online? Thanks so much!

[photobangbang]

I am happy to share any insight I can.

Here are my thoughts on improving the booking process for my hourly studio rental business:

1. Start with the calendar. My customers usually know the date they are wanting to book my space, and will work with the hours available. Starting with the "when" instead of the "what" would work better for my studio rental business, but having the "what" come first works better for my photography business, where people are looking for packages.

2. Once the "what" (Studio booking, photography session, etc) is picked, I need customers to choose from a few categories of add-ons: Lighting, Crew, Props, Sets to modify their booking. Currently, I can have add-ons in the register, but they are not available in the online booking side for customers to pick.

3. Submit Booking Request with prepayment or deposit

4. Approve booking