Which item library should I use?

[familiarcards]

I'm confused by having two separate item libraries.

One is at https://squareup.com/dashboard/items/library

Another is https://square.online/app/store/users/.../sites/.../#/store/products

Items and categories sometimes synchronize from one to another and sometimes they don't.

Which one I should use and which one to avoid?

[MJD]

If you use the Square POS item library all your products can be found and managed for your site from the square online item library, I’d recommend use of the main POS library.

If this helped don’t forget to mark it as best answer to help other users find a fix sooner in future!

[Twiggy]

if you create an item in weebly - direct on the website it will sync to your POS library.  If you create in POS it will only go across when you hit sync or have sync enabled.  If you create an item directly on weebly it will show up immediately on Insatgram product and facebook products to tag in a post.  You can also bulk edit in the Online items library. - so making your fulfillment for everything change immediately - great for when you carry hundreds of items.  

You POS item library will offer you a checkout link - hyper link for you to copy and paste an item - to link in an email or text for someone to just clcik and pay. 

As you business grows and you offer more product you'll find out which best suits your business - also how your clients contact you - like keep a note of your 3 products and just ping it across to your cleint in a text for them to just click and pay - a bit like the QR codes.

If you're using social media a lot, tagging, etc then the online item library is better as insta immediately acknoweldges the product. 

[okaycokey]

For my business I need to use both Items libraries as there are subtle differrences with attributes that need to be applied due to me physically selling at Artisan Markets via the Point of Sale app (which is driven from the squareup.com Dashboard), but also having website sales with some unique stock and some shared stock of the same products.

A few considerations:

(1) If you want your website store to have a category structure then you can only do that by using square.online as the category metadata is only relevant for websites. These are not the same as Categories on squareup.com, which can initially be very confusing (and should have different naming convention in my opinion!)

(2) If you want multiple product images/media then this can only be set up on the square.online item details. squareup.com Dashboard only allows one image (as that is used to display the ite image on POS)

(3) If you sell in multiple locations (like we sell online and at Artisan Markets) then you can only edit locations within squareup.com.

(4) squareup.com dashboard/POS reports use the category structure defined in the squareup.com item details. This can not be set using the square.online item settings. If you didnt bother setting the category here, all sales would be shown as Uncategorised.

[familiarcards]

Thanks, this is helpful.

I only have one "location" - an online store and I don't plan to have any other locations or to send checkout links in emails. In this case, should I ignore squareup.com item library completely and only create/edit/categorize items on square.online?

Initially I've created items in squareup.com. Now want to apply some formatting to their descriptions, but there's no formatting options in squareup.com. Square.online item editor says items are synced with Square Item Library and doesn't allow to apply formatting. There is a hint:

"Want to style your description with bold, italics, or bullets? Unsync your item description in sync settings.".

1. Should I unsync?
2. Will I loose something if I do?
3. Will stock management still work properly without sync?

[tranguyen]

Hey @familiarcards, I'm going to step in for a moment there! 

You can use either library as the information do sync between them. If you are primarily using the Online site and not the Point of Sale app, then it'd make sense to use the Square Online library more often.

Unsync the Item Description will mean that any update you made on your website won't be reflect in the item description within the Square Point of Sale Item Library. It won't affect stock management at all and this should still work as normal. 

I hope this will help!

[familiarcards]

@tranguyen this doesn't work actually.

I've created a new item in weebly item library. The system doesn't allow me to set stock for it: I'm getting error message "This sku is currently unavailable at any of your locations. To change this, edit it in Square. "

When I click "Edit in Square" link, I got "Sorry, the page you are looking for could not be found".

I think I'm beginning to understand why Shopify is more popular.

I'm in a dead lock now: If I enable Square sync I'll loose formatting on item description, which is very important for me. But without Square sync I can't update stock on new items thus I can't sell them. 

Edit: it's even worse: the new item became available on the shop, and I can "buy" any amount of it. What should I do if a customer pays for more than I have in stock?

[MJD]

You need to use one of the item libraries on the square side of things 

[familiarcards]

But it doesn't allow me to format item descriptions. It's worse usability for customers and Google rank plaintext lower.

[familiarcards]

@tranguyen is there an official position on this issue?

Bug: There's no way to use formatting in item description and keep track of inventory.

If square sync is off, new items added in square online don't have inventory tracking capability.

When I turn on square sync, all formatting and other changes to idem descriptions disappear and don't come back when I turn square sync off again.

[tranguyen · Accepted solution]

Apology for this @familiarcards, I must have miss this earlier in the week.

I had a look on my own test account and I think I might know what's causing the error.

When creating a new item on the Square Online site, if you are looking to update stock right after the item was created, the error message you mentioned above will come up. This is because the system need a few seconds/minutes to sync.

Once you've created the item, the best thing is to save and go back to your Item Library. From there, click into your item again. At this point, you should be able to update stock as normal.

If these steps do not help, can you share some screenshot of the error message you are getting with me?

[familiarcards]

That worked, thank you. 

[familiarcards]

@tranguyen 

Wait, it's broken again.

I've just created a few items on square online, saved them all, waited a few minutes.

Now when I try to update stock for them, I get the same "This sku is currently unavailable at any of your locations. To change this, edit it in Square."

This is very frustrating. 

I really want to switch to another e-commerce product. How can I get a refund?

[tranguyen]

Really sorry about this @familiarcards! In this case, it might be best contact our Support team directly as there are additional settings they can access and check. They will also be able to assist with refunding your subscription as well.

Here are the steps to contact Square Support by phone or by email:

1. Go to https://squareup.com/help/gb/en/contact
2. Select your topic or just click Other > I don’t see my issue, it’ll give you the option to either call or email in!

The phone number for Square Support is 0800 098 8008. The Square Support Team is available by phone Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.