Re: Feature Request: continue selling out of stock...

amjessey · ‎02-14-2021

Feature Request: continue selling out of stock items

In Square Online, is there a way to continue selling items which are out of stock? Some of our items are often backordered and even though we don't hold stock for these items we need to show them as being in-stock and available to buy so the customer can add them to his basket and checkout.

Thank you.

Alex Jessey

tranguyen · ‎02-15-2021

Hi @amjessey, thanks for your post! At the moment, it isn't possible to sell items through the Square Online site once the stock is reduced to zero. You'd need to update the stock in order to keep selling the items online.

Tra | she/her
Community Engagement Program Manager, Square
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amjessey · ‎02-15-2021

Hi @tranguyen

Thank you for the reply. I would like to therefore convert this post into a feature request post. Can you therefore move it to the appropriate board for me?

The reason why I think this would be beneficial for users is that when any seller is selling items on a backordered basis, i.e. they don't hold stock but instead order it from their supplier only after they have received an order from their customer, it is necessary to show the item as available to buy on their website at all times.

It is not a viable workaround to manually update the stock to show units in stock, because for items that are backordered it is possible that stock may be actually held for some variations but not for others, and it's these others that will be backordered. Therefore, updating the stock to show some variations in stock when they are actually not, at the same time as other variations are actually in stock will cause all sorts of trouble for the user; stock reports including stock takes will be impossible, as will selling in-store, as will quoting accurate shipping times for the online customer.

Thank you.

Alex Jessey

amjessey · ‎03-08-2021

Hi @tranguyen

Would using Online Checkout links a workaround to this issue? Can we embed Online Checkout links in the product page of specific items?

Thank you.

PS please bring this post to the attention of your product team.

Alex Jessey

amjessey · ‎03-08-2021

I've answered my own question - Online Checkout links also adhere to the stock status, so if there's no stock the checkout button is greyed out, so that doesn't help.

Alex Jessey

tranguyen · ‎03-09-2021

Hey @amjessey, apology for the late reply here! The Square Checkout Link and Square Online site draw from the same stock, so once an item's stock goes down to 0, there isn't a way to keep selling it. The only other workaround I can think of is to have separate items for in-store and online. That way, you'd be able to continue selling online even if the item is out of stock. It's definitely not the most elegant of solution, but that'd be the only option here.

Tra | she/her
Community Engagement Program Manager, Square
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amjessey · ‎03-09-2021

Hi @tranguyen

Thank you for the information.

I spoke with Support last night and they too made the same suggestion (making a copy of the item, one for online and one for instore).

Another suggestion was to turn stock tracking off. At first I thought this wouldn't work as it at first seemed that even if an item had stock tracking turned off by the user, Square would turn in back on every time the item was received on a purchase order! I'm glad to say that a test run last night showed that wasn't the case. Whilst it is still not an ideal solution, I think this option is better for us considering our type of business compared to the other.

The ideal solution would still be to be able to track stock but the website continues showing that item as being available to buy. Of course, for the user this should be controllable at an item level, even an item variation level, so he can choose which items remain available even when stock runs out and which ones do not.

Thank you.

Alex Jessey

amjessey · ‎03-08-2021

Sounds like this pre-ordering feature will be very helpful: https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Square-Online-Feature-Requests/Feature-Request-Preordering-Online...

Alex Jessey

amjessey · ‎03-08-2021

More related posts:

Alex Jessey

amjessey · ‎08-24-2022

Update:

We have a need for Shipping, Local Delivery and Pick-up from our bricks-and-mortar store across two locations. We hold some stock of items but we also work on a back-order basis where we order stock from our supplier after our customer places an order with us. We sell clothes.

1) We require concurrent selling of inventory from multiple business locations where shipping is the fulfilment method. Currently, this is not possible because available stock from one location only can be shown to the online customer when shipping is the chosen fulfilment method.

https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Questions-How-To/Shipping-for-Square-Online-site-with-multiple-bu...

2) We need to sell certain items that go out of stock (items we back-order from our supplier). The workaround of turning off stock tracking does not work as we need to show the current stock of all variations of that item (some variations might still be in stock whereas other variations aren't). Each item (in-stock and not-in-stock, i.e. back-order) has its own lead time so we need to inform the customer how long he will wait before the item is ready for fulfilment.

Thanks

Alex Jessey

sociusbjj · ‎02-12-2023

Added comment to say this feature would be incredibly helpful as we don't keep physical stock on all our items, but want customers to be able to order at any time so we can include it in our fulfillment orders

k_atie · ‎02-13-2023

Hi @sociusbjj, thanks for your comment! I've passed it over to our product teams for further consideration. We'll be sure to update the availability on this feature on the Community!

KibbleCupboard · ‎03-02-2023

Yeah, I agree. I feel like out of stock items should have a "Request for Order" button or something so we aren't losing a possible sale. This way we can order in the out of stock item and contact the customer when the stock is replenished. I am sure Squares UX Design team can figure out how best to handle this and their engineers shouldn't have any problem bringing this to fruition.

Feature Request: continue selling out of stock items

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