GTIN for Square POS

[villagebeer]

Will GTINs be made available in the Square Point of Sale app? GTINs were recently made available in the Register app ONLY, but they would be extremely useful for POS users as well. The ability to have both SKU and GTIN fields and to be able to use them in the POS app would be beneficial for many Square users.

We greatly prefer the workflow of the POS app, but are forced to use Register now because it is the only way we can take advantage of the GTIN (we depend on Barcodes) but also use separate SKUs.

Hoping someone at Square can make this integration happen on the POS as well.

[villagebeer]

If you are using the Square POS app then it won't support the GTIN. It is only supported in the the Retail App.  We need Square to make GTINs available in the POS app asap.

[Joe]

Once again, thanks for the feedback surrounding GTIN's @villagebeer. I'm going to go ahead and merge this post into your original, as well.

Thanks, again!

[villagebeer]

Can you please make GTINs available in the Square POS. It is only currently available in the Retail app, but they would be very useful to those who also you the POS app.

[Joe]

Hi again, @villagebeer. I've gone ahead and merged your post into your existing thread. Take a look at the Best Answer from that thread for more insight!

[Joe · Accepted solution]

Hi again, @villagebeer - thanks for taking the time to post a new thread about GTIN availability. Always good to have new conversations!

As I mentioned previously in your posts, currently,we can confirm that there are no plans to bring GTIN to the normal Square Point of Sale. This feature will remain as accessible through the Square for Retail platform.

For record keeping purposes, I will merge your other requests into this same posts. This will be streamlined as I send your requests over to our Product Teams as a Feature Request.

Thanks again!

[HDT1]

HI Village,

Feeling your pain.  We research POS a great deal before we selected Square POS for our wocommerce based business taking it to bricks and mortar.  We bought the hardware (one of the major reasons we selected the POS), but were shocked after paying a developer to assist configure the apps that his decision to go with the RETAIL app version for IPAD was useless if we wanted to use the much mentioned Square terminal device for taking payments.

Square customer service just advised that RETAIL POS for Ipad CANT USE SQUARE TERMINAL devices !

So we were forced to deleted that app, and load the generic Square POS app again.  ONLY to find out, or at least we suspect, that POS version doesnt copy wocommerce product GTIN (barcodes) to the app.  Meaning that we cant use barcode readers in store to speed up customer processing. Not sure if that is true, but if so, its a massive flaw in their system.  ALL SQUARE apps should allow the expensive square terminal hardware, AND import all product data, including GTIN codes to their SQAURE APPs.

There might be a laborious work around with excel, but am hoping that I have missed something. What is a POS system that doesnt allow a decent card reader and barcode scanner attachment really useful for?  

[SewMondo]

This is the most frustrating situation. I use Big Commerce for online sales and use Square POS through the Square Terminal for face-to-face sales. Whilst the terminal is a fabulous piece of hardware, for a business that has loads of colourful & patterned products (fabric, thread, etc), the small screen was difficult to view at times. When I found out the terminal could finally be used with iPads, it was a hallelujah moment! Then I thought I could finally utilise a barcode scanner to speed up transactions.

But enter the absolute ridiculousness of Square's apparent lack of understanding of the EQUAL importance of SKUs & GTINs. Seriously guys, a SKU is a supplier code (and often used in a search by customers so relevant to many stakeholders) and GTIM is a barcode to readily identify a product in a uniform way across product categories. Having a SKU field without a GTIN field is simply not adequate and frankly very short sighted. But Square DOES know it isn't adequate as Square for Retail allows for both SKUs & GTIN. Even if I was to pay the extra to use Square for Retail, then as the another poster has stated, my Square Terminal would then be redundant. For a company that has been so progressive, it just doesn't make sense. 

[HDT1]

We have stalled our entry into physical retail partly because of the issue with Square POS and barcode scanning.    We have the square terminal but Square POS doesnt accept GTIN values from woocommerce.

In April 2022 the current status is that since Woocommerce didnt natively allow a GTIN field for products, and we had to use a third party plugin to get GTIN values into woocommerce product pages .. that is why square is saying 'not our problem'.

I am wondering if everyone with a similar issue (cant use square with barcodes AND square terminal ) are having a similar conversation with their developers ?  Or is this just a woocommerce issue ?  with only 3 million users, I must be one of the few people who have encountered this issue.

The only work around we can still do, is to delete all SKU values from Woocommerce, and copy and paste the GTIN value into the SKU field.  With three product variations for most products, that is as lot of manual work, and it permanently deletes SKU's off the system - meaning we hope that another future product doesn't require an SKU.   Ideally we would love to use both.

We have found that Woocommerce management doesnt want to natively add a GTIN field (even though google shopping cant be done without it, but google plugins are clever enough to extract the gtin value that is added using the gtin plugin), and Square doesnt want to use info from a third party plugin to get the GTIN value into their POS app.   So that is either left to the developers of the GTIN plugin to figure out how Square might access that value, or a programmer/ developer to find a way.

You would almost think that woocommerce/ square dont understand the basics of ecommerce that typically like to use both an SKU and GTIN barcode value?    If there are any developers out there with a solution to this, there might be a big market searching for you.  Cheers Bruce

[SewMondo]

Hi Bruce, I can't help you with a solution but I can confirm that our ecommerce platform Big Commerce does have both a SKU & GTIN (termed UPC) field - I find it strange that Woocommerce doesn't have one as standard? How frustrating that you need a third party to add this basic element. Not sure if that's worth a move to another platform but in general, Big Commerce has been excellent. Square does pick up the SKU field from Big Commerce, but as we know, Square needs to pick up the GTIN field as well so you would still have an issue on the Square end!

[HDT1]

Thank you Sewmondo.   I did a lot of research to choose what I thought at the time was the best (and mostly biggest) ecommerce plugin for wp when we switched from another cms.  Because MANY of our plugins are specific to woocommerce changing over to any other ecommerce plugin would be a similar difficulty as selecting a new cms for us.  Just did a quick search and one article says woocommerce has 26% of wp marketshare with shopify close by at 21%.  From past experience (including phone OS etc) - I know that developers are easiest to find for the largest market share products in any niche. 

Its just strange that google shopping can use the GTIN number (from an add on plugin for a woocommerce product), but Square POS cant use the GTIN?   Or that square RETAIL can use the GTIN number from woocommerce plugin, but doesnt work with Square Terminal  (its own product) !!!

If they can make Square Retail work with GTIN, why cant they make GTIN populate in square POS ?  Or make Square terminal compatible with Square RETAIL?  It almost seems like the Product Managers have been asleep at the wheel?  Just because I want to use square products shouldn't mean I have to delete all of our businesses SKU's.   If I wanted that inconvenience (and before I bought all of the compatible square hardware) , I could have just as easily chosen stripe of any other gateway in Australia.  This is not ideal PR.

[Candlestore]

Did you try the Square for Retail Free version?  The Free version is suppose to work with SKU and GTIN.

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6921-square-for-retail-free 

I started using Square POS then quickly switched to the Free version because of the ability for Barcode scanning, but used QuickBooks for COGS and other items so I did not need the paid version.  I have not setup GTINs yet because I do not sell in lots and just do the math when we get cases in--- ie 4 cases of 12 - 48 items  etc

[HDT1]

Hi Keith,

"Did you try the Square for Retail Free version?  The Free version is suppose to work with SKU and GTIN."

I paid a developer to set up a square POS for woocommerce.  They set it up in Square Retail POS.  We then found that Square Retails POS is not compatible with the $400 "Square terminal " device.

We bought Square Terminal, because it prints receipts AND is better for Covid when you want to give customers extra space and not touching the ipad to put in credit card details etc, if they dont work on the simple square tablet option.

Because of that incompatibility (we confirmed with square service people) - we had to go to square POS - which as this thread notes doesnt take up GTIN values from woocommerce - making the barcode reader another paper weight,

FREE or not, there shouldn't be basic functionality missing on any of the square POS apps, if they are interested in our % on every sale.  And speaking of, as we are paying a percentage on EVERY sale, why should we then pay on top for using their app ?  This is where the lesser known payment gateways are getting a foothold.

[HDT1]

I have not setup GTINs yet because I do not sell in lots and just do the math when we get cases in--- ie 4 cases of 12 - 48 items  etc"  

When a business has many products, and scrolling through categories, then products, then specific weight variations takes considerable time for ONE item, imagine making a customer wait all that time while you fuss around instead of using a barcode scanner on the GTIN number, in a virtual instant?     THAT is why Barcodes were set up, and should form the core of most real physical stores.      And we want to keep our SKU  AND GTIN barcodes, which currently with either square POS system, it seems impossible to do, if we want to use square terminal AND a barcode scanner - both purchased and gathering dust. 

[JJ_]

We are working hard to bring Square for Retail to the Square Terminal @HDT1. I recommend you submit a Feature Request here. This will help our product team get visibility and track other Sellers' interest in your request.

Important: When submitting a request, make sure to include the desired feature, and provide the details of how this feature will help your business succeed (how would you use it and what you expect from it).

[HDT1]

Hi JJ,

I had a month or so of detailed email exchanges with the customer service person from square and continually asked that they send my requests onto management.   Apart from writing the code myself (that I cant do) - spending more time on a feature request sounds just as wasteful. 

I was kind of hoping that comments here might draw the attention of square to get all of their ipad apps up to the same level .. but I doubt that my little wish can influence such a large company.  I was then thinking that maybe a developer would put their hand up to create a patch, but again that hasn't happened.   Then again from here, I have no idea if woocommerce, the gtin plugin guys, or square developers would need to do the work.  

If they do fix the issue, it will be totally coincidental, NOT in response to an actual customer request.  B