Q&A: Ask our Square for Retail Product Managers Anything

[Tom]

Hello Sellers! Our Square for Retail team hosted a virtual office hours session on August 11th, 2021.

Product managers @NKRfromProduct, @LeahfromProduct, @KCfromProduct, @MLBfromProduct, and @TonifromProduct lead this session.

Learn more about their areas of expertise below:

@MLBfromProduct: I’ve been a product manager at Square since 2019, based in the NYC office. My area of focus has been helping Retail expand into new countries such as Canada, Australia and the UK as well as integrate parts of the Square Ecosystem into the Retail POS that are useful to Retailers (such as messaging). I’m really excited to hear about anything you wish was in the Retail App, such as being able to manage your team, as well as any pain points you have with managing your relationships with your customers that we currently don’t serve well.

@KCfromProduct: I recently joined Square in July 2021. As the Product Manager of the Retail Machine Learning team, it’s my job to think about all the ways we can use AI/ML to help you save time and grow your business. As such, I’d love to learn more about which tasks you’d like to see automated and what types of insights would help you run your business more efficiently.

@LeahfromProduct: I started at Square in 2018, where I worked from Square’s Atlanta office as a Product Manager on the Catalog team. I have since relocated back to NYC and am now the Product Manager working on catalog building and advanced inventory features on the Square for Retail team. I’m excited to hear about the things that slow you down so we can help give you time back to grow your business.

@NKRfromProduct: I started at Square in March 2021 and am based in San Francisco. As the Product Manager for the Growth team, I’m looking for ways to help sellers better understand how Square for Retail can be valuable to them and expand our reach around the globe. I’m particularly interested in what you could use more help with learning how to do in the product or what type of information or tutorials you might have found helpful when you were first getting set up.

@TonifromProduct: I’ve been at Square since 2016, focusing on our hardware integrations for the last few years. I joined the Square for Retail team earlier this year and am focusing on order management, fulfilment s and complex transaction needs. Looking forward to hearing from you about any omnichannel needs you have, and how we can help serve you better.

Having worked on a variety of features on Square for Retail and more than 9 years of combined experience at Square, they answered questions and made sure your feedback went to the right decision makers. Learn more about Square for Retail.

A few example questions:

• How can I make sure I'm getting the most out of Square for Retail?
• What are the best strategies for fulfilling customer orders with Square for Retail?
• What’s the difference between a GTIN and a UPC?
• How can I make sure I’m getting the most out of my Inventory reports?

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.

[#2]

Hello and thank you to everyone who contributed questions this week. We appreciate you sharing your experience! I'm checking in at the end of the hour to let you know that the opportunity to post new questions is closed. Our Retail team members is working on some followups and will respond to more questions over the next couple of days.

Thanks for your patience and keep watch for updates. 🙏🏻

[ZEROCAT]

Leah, 

I'm new here. We've been using Square for Retail for nearly a year now. I continue to have difficulty finding current answers/information. Especially for the Square Hardware. With that in mind here are a couple of my issues:

1. Workflow - Creating an item or receiving inventory of a current item. Should be able to directly print labels/barcodes from that page. Currently, we have to add the sku and then start again to print labels.

2. Label printing - Currently I only see TWO label options for the DYMO printer. ONE of those labels sizes is discontinued by DYMO. We would prefer 1"x1" for DYMO  and Barbell/Jewelry for very small items but no luck.

3. Features available to "iPad" users like customer information collection don't seem to be available to Square Hardware users. If they are, I can't find direction for it. 

Honestly it after investing in the hardware for two brick-and-mortar locations, it feels like the back-end support is lacking and more directed to ONLINE sellers. 

ANY direction would be welcome.

Thank you

[PV4U]

So this may have been addressed and I possibly missed it. But my question/concern is this...

I (we) pay a decent premium to use square for retail. I use the Square for Retail app to check out due to being able to use the barcode scanner. However, the free version has more payment options. Like to send a link, cash qp qr code etc. My employee also must still use the free square app to clock in and out. Is there a way or a good reason on why these free upgrades to the free square app is not available to those of us that pay the premium for square retail. 

[homeprogreen]

You can use the barcode scanner with the regular free Square POS app. I use it all the time on one of my iPads. Works great. 

[specs]

Honestly, the only reason I find Retail helpful right now is the COGS reporting. I've been asking for more granular reporting for 4 years now and there haven't been meaningful improvements. We export and parse the reporting out manually to make it more useful.