Square Stand Inventory Management When Sold Out

[LarsonJ]

I want to use square stand to sell lunch tickets in a trade show type environment at 4 different stations around the venue. I have 8 lunch options, and I would like to be able to stock all stations with more than enough physical tickets, and just have the inventory option display as sold out when the actual number of available lunches are sold out, and not allow any more sales to be processed. This way I don't have to worry about printing the exact number of tickets and some stations having extra tickets when others are sell out even if there is "stock" left. Essentially I want the option to have inventory work like it does for an online store at the physical register. Is this a possibility?

Thanks, Josh

[kellyj]

@ValliHi

Thanks for the post, we do appreciate it, and definitely do hear this request. We've said it before, and do mean it- it's not lip service that these posts are pushed on to our Product teams, and this feedback is prioritized. In some cases though, even though it's been requested, we're not able to roll out this change at this point.

There's a little information on how Feature Requests are prioritized and the lifecycle of how they work here.

There is a lot of work going into Inventory management at this time, I'll be sure to surface this again with the team.

[Eeniemeeniemine]

This is just crazy! I have my first market stall in 2 days and have just synced my Etsy store with Square to test everything is working ok and have only just come to realize that the inventory numbers mean absolutely nothing when managing your sales on the day. 

My business is custom making products but I only have select amount of materials for each product available, now I have no idea how I am going to manage this on the day?! I’m going to be possibly selling items to people that I have no materials to make the final product!

it seems super counter-intuitive to be more worried about maybe missing a once in a blue moon loss of a sale because you haven’t updated your stock yet, rather than the horrible situation of over selling stock you don’t have and being in a situation where that customer won’t use use your services again because you have let them down and they will be telling their friends not to buy from you. 

im really unhappy with this- it would be best if this was something that Square was a little more upfront about before you go ahead and invest in this product which is quite frankly sub-par.

disappointed. 

[Joe]

Hi @Eeniemeeniemine - thanks for taking the time to explain how the absence of this feature affects you. 

We hear you, and it looks like you are not the only one asking for this feature. We will be sure to update this thread in the future when there is an update to share.

[robbymartian]

Hi Joe_,

I just wanted to +1 this feature request. Having the ability to block the creation of an order that features one or more out of stock items is a requirement for my business. Currently, we're making an extra request to the API to batch retrieve inventory counts prior to creating the order. In addition to slowing down the order processing for the end user, the delay introduces an opportunity for race conditions where the sale of an out of stock item might still occur. I understand the rationale to not prevent the sale of an item that is actually in stock on account of a stock adjustment error; however, I think that's probably an edge case. Based on the responses in this thread, I would posit that most users are accurately reporting their inventory and would much prefer the sale be blocked vs. the more lax, "sell it anyway" approach. At least in terms of the Square API, you could add a property to the request body of the Create order endpoint called "in_stock_only" (or something similar), that's type is Boolean and default is false. That would be an opt-in/backwards compatible approach that would probably satisfy most users. 

Regardless, thank you for taking the time to follow the thread and offer helpful and timely responses! 

[TrevorB]

I was using Shopify POS and card reader with success but decided to make the switch so that I could accept debit. The lack of this feature has me wanting to switch back to my old system. It seems like an extremely simple and basic feature to have. This feature is very important for my business. I need to know with confidence that my products will not be oversold. How many more people have to request this feature before it gets implemented? 

On another note, is there a way to see the inventory numbers in the checkout process without going to the inventory section in the app? I would like to click on my product to be sold and see immediately how many units are left. This would also make it easier to prevent overselling. 

Thanks

[spicelife]

Hi Joe, 

I also  wanted to request that this option be added to the square online store. We are working very hard to keep our stock counts up to date. Having the ability to sell something that is not in stock is not of benefit and in fact is quite a negative from our point of view.  We are in the process of creating our on line store in square, but now we are not sure we should proceed. Please see what you can do to influence Square to remedy this situation.

Thank you.

[LizM]

Has there been any progress in this feature? We just launched an online store to coexist with our brick and mortar store and find that when we sell out of a product online but haven't fulfilled that order we can still sell that inventory on the POS again is a major problem, and will only lead to terrible customer service. There has to be a way that you could see the inventory level somehow on the POS without going to the item page.

[AshleyK]

Hey @LizM thanks for taking the time to post. At this time, there is still no update to this feature. 

When an item sells out or is no longer in stock, it won’t be available for purchase from your Online Store. The item will appear as “sold out” and can’t be added to your customer’s online cart.

If you’re processing a sale from the Square app, you won’t be blocked from selling an out of stock item. Your inventory will be accurately updated in your online Square Dashboard to show sold out items as 0 or below, but you’ll still be able to complete these sales. 

The only way to resolve this will be to reject the online order, or to maintain and accept your orders as soon as they come in. 

[LizM]

I would think that something as simple as this could be implemented.  It would only need to display when your low stock warning threshold has been reached.  It would easily notify whoever is using the POS if the item is indeed instock. It would also only be displayed if you track your inventory.

Letting the in store POS sell out of stock items does not make sense when both (in store and online) sell from the same inventory.

[TaylorP]

I would also like to +1 this request. As a retail bakery, the way that the current POS inventory integrated with the online store is just not usable in a busy setting. We could have 3 online orders waiting to be packed up and someone at the register could buy out our stock leaving those three online orders empty handed. We update out inventory every night after close for online pre orders but the opportunity for mistakes with the POS are so high that we're considering other POS options as we phase back into reopening. 

A solution as simple as seeing the inventory stock next to each item would solve this problem entirely.

 

[LizM]

@AshleyK I was just wondering if there has been any movement on this?

[AshleyK]

Hi @LizM Thanks so much for reaching out! There is currently no movement on this specific feature request, but depending on your business, you can consider using Square for Restaurants, one of our subscription services. When an item reaches 0 inventory, you can choose to have it either auto 86'd or ask you if you would like to mark the item as unavailable for sale in your physical store. 

If that sounds interesting to you, you can read more about it in our help article. 

Let me know if you have any other questions. 🙂

[Lbcreamery]

Unbelievably disappointing that there is no movement on this request after several years of people bringing it up as necessary.

It is even more important in today's reality. Inventory awareness at the register is essential and should be made part of the Square service immediately.

[robbymartian]

+1 to that. Maybe if we tweet at Square and get a bunch of retweets it will get their attention? Or bug senior product people on LinkedIn? I can’t imagine any other single feature request has this size  following and has lasted this long, which is a good indication that maybe they just don’t care. 

[Anthem]

A frustrating response for sure. You have the very feature this group is asking for but only make it available through an offering, I suspect, doesn't fit the needs of many asking for this feature. In fact, based on my review of the restaurant version it would introduce greater complications and further complicate the ability of many to reach and sell to their customers. 

I'd like to request that this be reviewed again. Even a simplified version of this feature would be beneficial and reduce the customer service issues created by trying to deploy the very tools Square gives us to reach customers and increase sales.

Thanks for considering,

[Sparrowyxe]

So am I correct that this feature is only available if we use a subscription Square for Restaurants and pay more money?

Please someone just fix this. This thread is like 4+ years old. 

[Jfleeger]

I just signed up for restaurant based on this advice, and the problem I am having now is that the counts can only be entered for items, not for variations.  I have a few variations that are more limited than others, am I going to have to redo everything to make those separate items instead of variations of an item?  I receive stock of each variation in the dashboard, but I have to add independently to the menu, this doesn't make sense.

[Alex_]

@Sparrowyxe,

At the moment, you would still need the Square for Restaurants subscription. We will be sure to let you know if anything ever changes or if new updates are released. 

[BackyardBBQ]

I own a BBQ restaurant and we sell out everyday. Now i wanted to know if it was possible for you  guys to add a sold out feature to the square software so that i can avoid my cashiers from keep ringing up food that we are sold out of. That would be such a great help for my business.    

[JM7]

Spoiler

Spoiler

If I missed to put an item in my library it allows me to scan the barcode at checkout. But It does not give me a beep or anything to let me know that the barcode did not scan.

can you please add a feature where it can make a sound letting me know at check out that the item is not on the system.


I would be more than half way scanning items and then I would notice after that one item didn’t scan and I would need to go back in the shopping bags and figure out which Item it was.



so can you please add a sound to where It beeps or makes a sound letting me know that the barcode that I scanned is not in my item library at check out

[isabelle]

Thanks so much for this example. I can see how this would be a pain point @JM7. We've heard from other sellers in the past that they'd like to see a sold out functionality for the POS. 

We're tracking this feature request in this thread. We'll make sure to update the thread should the feature be developed. Thanks again.