Challenge with staff discounts

[skafte]

Hi everyone,

Hope you are all well.

I've run into a slightly tricky issue which I hope someone can help me solve.

We offer our staff discounts on all our products, but as the wholesale prices and the margins vary by quite a lot we cannot set a fixed discount for everything (ie. 50%) as we would then be selling some products to staff for less than what they've cost us. At the moment we have a list of staff prices for all products and when we were using Zettle our staff could easily set a custom discount for each item in an order. This isn't possible in Square as all the discount rules are predefined (ie. 50% or 25%).

I'm not sure what the best way would be around this(?) – would it be to duplicate all products in the till, rename them (ie. add 'STAFF' at the end), and change their prices? This seems like a very cumbersome and clumsy solution, but I can't think of any other ways of doing it!? -but hopefully, I'm just missing something.

Hope someone can help me with a tip and many thanks in advance!

[skafte]

@tranguyen, @Breffni – might one of you guys have an answer to this? Really appreciate your help! Cheers!

[Emma_]

Hi @skafte, thanks for your post. You can create multiple discount rules and set them up for specific categories or items. For example, if a staff member purchases 3 items including 2 items with -50% and one item with -25% discount, you will need to set up two different discount rules for each of these items or categories. You can select up to 100 categories or individual items for a discount.

I hope this is helpful, let me know if you have any questions at all. 

[Sam_400º]

I think Emma’s reply would work online but not on the POS.

In the POS you can set a variable amount discount & could either apply this to each item or just at the end of the sale (with a bit of maths & your staff price list). 

One alternative would be to add a variation to each item as “staff sale” that would then charge the lower amount - but think that would screw with stuff if you also sell online. 

[skafte]

Hi @Emma_ and @Sam_400º – many thanks for your responses!

@Emma_  – I'm afraid that the discount rules are exactly what I am trying to avoid, or work my way around, in that I've almost got 100 items in my shop and each of these items has a specific wholesale price; which is what I am trying to offer to my staff. In a way it's like 2-tier pricing that I need; one price for customers and one for staff. I, therefore, don't see it being viable working with grouped percentage rules as I'd probably have to have as many different percentage rules as there are products; ie. 100... Hope that makes sense, but thanks for your suggestion anyway!

@Sam_400º – Thanks for your input! Much appreciated! I'm not sure what you mean by "variable amount discount"? -but it sounds like what we used to do when we were using Zettle; with Zettle you can easily set a custom amount or percentage discount on each item or the whole order/sale. This is really what I'd like to be able to do, but I haven't found a way with Square... Your suggestion of setting up variations isn't bad, however, we are sometimes squeezed for time and so adding another step to the checkout process wouldn't be ideal; this would require first picking the item and then the variation. This can add up to quite a lot of time if you multiply it by hundreds and I'm already finding the checkout process slower than necessary (especially compared to Zettle; something I've also raised here). Anyway, I could of course make duplicate items that are designated for staff, ie. "Hot Chocolate STAFF", but again, this feels like a very cumbersome and clumsy solution.

Any other ideas? 😀 -or is what I'd like to do simply not possible with Square? 😬

[skafte]

PS. Having looked into it a bit more, I think my best bet is probably to set up item-based discount rules for each item as you suggest @Emma_. This will take a bit of time, but I think it'll work and it'll be worth the effort. Thanks again for your input both! 🙌

[Sam_400º · Accepted solution]

With variations you can set it to just add to cart as the default, then if it’s a staff sale they tap on the item & change the variation there. 

the variable discount is just that. You set a new discount & when you tap the button you then enter the £ amount of the discount (not the new price….).

so on this screenshot you can see the variable discounts. 

You can also apply different discounts at line level. Just tap on the item in the cart & ‘switch on’ the discount for that item alone:

[skafte]

Aha! Bingo! Many thanks @Sam_400º!

I hadn't realised that if you just do not fill out the amount when you set up a new discount, then it becomes variable. I thought it had to have a specific amount in that field.

Thanks so much for your help with this! That was exactly what I was hoping for!

PS. You don't know if it's somehow possible to add a variable discount at item/product level do you? Cheers!

[Sam_400º]

I don’t think you can - it would be a case of adding it all up & apply to the entire sale. 

[skafte]

OK, being able to apply a variable discount is a good start anyway! Thanks again! Btw. I love your pizzas! (I'm in Foxton and run a coffee roastery and coffee shop in London). Cheers!

[skafte]

Hi there guys – @Emma_ and @Sam_400º 

Sorry to bring this thread back alive, but I've realised that the solution of using item-based discount rules for each item (as you suggested @Emma_ ) works in the way that it automatically adds the discount if you put a specific item in the basket. I was hoping that it would simply mean that a discount would only be available to that item and not be applied automatically. Hope that makes sense. For example:

What happens

I add one white coffee to a sale and 'white coffee staff discount' is automatically applied.

What I would like to have happen

I add one white coffee to a sale and 'white coffee staff discount' becomes available as an optional discount only to that item.

The variable feature you kindly shared with me @Sam_400º still works brilliantly, but I'd like to be able to set fixed discounts for certain products for my staff as I cannot think of any other smarts way of managing staff discounts that aren't simple ones like 25% or 50% – we'd lose money on some items if we did that and so it's important to us that we can set specific discounts to specific items and not have them all showing at the same time.

Hope there's a solution to this and many thanks for having read this!

Cheers!

[k_atie]

Hey @skafte, no worries about opening up the thread again. It's what we're here for 😊 I'm just stepping in for Emma here!

I've just tested it on my own account and seems like only making discounts available to specific items is a feature request at the moment. We can definitely see why it is useful to your business though! We'll be sure to pass on your feedback to our product team who will take it on board. Hopefully, it's something they can look to include in our products in the future. 

[skafte]

Hi there @k_atie,

Thanks for your response!

OK. So in the meantime, do you recommend either using standard percentage discounts (ie. 50% or 25%) or variable discounts for staff purchases?

I obviously think those options aren't sufficient, hence my feature request of being able to set custom staff discounts on product level, exclusively for each product. But just wondering if there are any better ways of managing this currently?

Many thanks again!

[k_atie]

Mmh, that's a great question, @skafte . If you're looking to give your staff wholesale prices, it might be better to use variable discounts for staff as it'll give you the flexibility to choose the total amount coming off the total price. But ultimately that is up to you as you will know what's best for your business!

Additionally, what I have done on my own account is add a second variable discount that allows you to deduct a specific amount rather than a percentage from the total price, as per the screenshots below.

Having both options available might give you more flexibility when adding discounts to the transaction. 

We'll take your feedback on board and hopefully, having discounts at product level is something we can implement sometime in the future. 

[skafte]

Thanks @k_atie!

Hope to see discounts at product level become a reality one day!

Cheers!