Square Online updates for March 2022

[Seamus]

Hi everyone! We're excited to share new Square Online updates with you! These features were designed to give you more flexibility in handling complex business operations and more ways to stylise your site.

Buyer-entered location for QR code ordering

You can now configure QR code ordering to require that customers manually enter their location when ordering. If you're a large venue or hosting a big event, share a single QR code throughout your establishment so that you don't need to set up and keep track of a multitude of stations. Customers then enter their location with their order, simplifying your order fulfillment process.

Head to your Self-Serve Ordering settings to enable or update QR code ordering, or follow our detailed setup instructions to get started.

Enhanced order scheduling flexibility

For those who prepare multiple orders at a time or offer limited windows for pickup, there are now more scheduling options so you can better inform customers of their order pickup time. The scheduling window is now customizable, ranging between 7 and 365 days, to help you control when customers can place pre-orders. You can set cutoff times for order placement and push late orders to a following day if desired. Check out all the new options in your Pickup settings or follow our help guide to get started with pickup orders.

Video upload

Quickly and easily add more media to your site with our new direct video upload feature. It supports all major video file formats and up to 100MB in file size. Please note that your site must be on a Pro plan or higher in order to upload a custom video. Head to the site editor and upload a custom video or learn more about the video capabilities of Square Online in our Support Centre.

We hope you enjoy the latest Square Online updates. We're so excited to keep growing with you and we look forward to sharing more with you soon!

[Madame_and_Yves]

I appreciate the transparency and being kept in the loop on updates and developments. However, our business won't need or use any of these updates to Square Online. What we desperately need is the ability to change hours of pickup fulfillments by specific dates (not days of the week) so that we can properly fulfil customer orders during our opening hours when they change due to public holidays. Not simply feature restricted dates where our shop is closed, but to be able to modify the hours on those "restricted dates". For example, Uber and Google allow us to tailor opening hours for specific dates far in advance-- whereas with Square I have to wait until a Sunday night to set up our fulfilment hours for the week ahead if we change our opening (ie pickup) hours for a public holiday falling on that week. This is extremely problematic because, for example, our customers will pre-order collecting for a public holiday weeks in advance (we're a bakery, so it makes sense to want special treats fresh on the day), and our regular hours are until 4pm so Square will allow them to set their pickup time to 3:59 even if we will be closing at 1pm on that holiday. With the current Square Online design, if we close earlier on a public holiday, we can try to set up a pop up announcement for the special hours requesting customers to please schedule pickup times accordingly, even add another note in all caps in the description hoping they read it, and then double check every single order coming through to make sure they have scheduled it properly. But if a customer has scheduled their pickup when we'll be closed, and isn't responsive, or if we don't catch they've scheduled it for when we're closed, they are likely to show up at the wrong time and be incredibly frustrated, need a refund, won't come back and the products will go to waste...or I have to keep staff back for hours at public holiday rates for the customers who didn't read our pickup instructions correctly? 

[Madame_and_Yves]

Another request for a future update would be to make a product through Square Online available only for specific dates/hours. For example, special items only being created for holidays. Being able to limit availability/pre-order fulfilment for a specified date range by product-- not the entire location/shop. Thanks!

[AthletesGuildAU]

QR codes and videos oh my!

How about a feature that every health fund recognised practitioner in Australia needs? i.e. the ability to put the customer's name on a receipt?!?!

[Arie]

Thank you for your detailed feedback, @Madame_and_Yves! The suggestions sellers share with us in the community are a factor in the new features that are rolled out, and we appreciate your input so we can improve Square Online. 

Time based categories for Square Online may help with the items you're only offering during specific times, or days, for example a Friday Happy Hour special. Check out this guide to get started, and let us know if this could be a suitable workaround for your business. 

Square Online also allows you to set up restricted dates, so you can block out days of the year when you won't be fulfilling pickup & delivery orders. For public holidays that occur on the same date each year, you can also set this to repeat so you won't have to make these changes the week of the holiday. Here's how:

1. Head to your Online Overview page and select Fulfillment > Pickup & delivery

2.  Select a location > Edit. Once here, scroll to Fulfillment hours, where you'll see Restricted dates:

I hope this helps, and please don't hesitate to share any other suggestions with us here. 

[Madame_and_Yves]

@Arie Thanks so much for the speedy reply and I'll see if the Time Based Categories work around will function for us. However, the restricted dates only helps if we're closing for the entire day-- it doesn't allow you to restrict your *hours* by specific date, only blocking out the whole day. Changing your opening hours (fulfilment hours) for a public holiday is a pretty common thing, so I hope this feature will come into play soon.

[AthletesGuildAU]

If only we could a speedy response on customer names on receipts. There are over 200,000 registered allied health professionals in Australia, those of us who are recognised for health insurance claims have been waiting for this feature since the launch of Square Appointments in 2014. 

[Arie]

Hi @AthletesGuildAU,

I understand your frustration not having an update on this request at the moment. For now, the workaround would be to add your customer's name as a note to your sale, which will be displayed on receipts as well. We'll be sure to share an update on Square Appointments features as soon as they become available.