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

[robbymartian]

@elaine_p at the time of writing my application, I was having to hit the batch-retreive-counts endpoint API prior to the orders endpoint to ensure the item wasn't sold out. This was due to a scenario where User A would add an in-stock item to their cart, User B purchases the last available item of the same type, and User A's order still succeed (unwantedly). The approach I described above technically works, but also allows for race conditions whereas an item could sell out between requests (unlikely, but possible). Ideally, API users could provide a boolean value in the POST body, something like "in_stock_only=true," to disallow the sale of out-of-stock items completely and let the server determine the availability. Does that make sense? Regardless, I think I speak for everyone on this thread when I say THANK YOU for taking the time to respond. 

[elaine_p]

Got it! Thank you for the additional detail. 

[TaylorP]

@elaine_p , can you tell us what the status is on when a "sold out" or inventory count = "0" icon could be displayed on the POS at checkout in order to have an indicator that we're out of an item before taking an in person order.

We're currently only able to have customers place their orders via the website (even when they're standing right in front of us) because the online store is the only effective way of managing our inventory counts.

[elaine_p]

Hi @TaylorP , this is still in the works. I'm tagging my colleague @saumaya  who will lead the beta effort for that work. 

[rhoagland]

For a little perspective, the first post in this thread is dated 07-18-2016. It's been over FOUR YEARS for what seems like a simple, common sense feature. 

[Whatafood]

@saumaya Can you please add this feature not just for online stores but also at the POS. As you can see this is a long time requested feature.

[saumaya]

Yup - to clarify my response was in the context of the Point of Sale application!

[lgmbts]

Thanks for the update.  This, and the online store tax issue are significant issues for many.  Please add my voice to the growing crowd that are really tired of manually tracking inventory, in a system that is suppose to be able to track inventory automatically.  Somewhere in this thread someone attached to Square says that allowing overselling is "by design" so that if someone isn't tracking inventory it won't stop them fro selling available inventory.  If that is the case, then there should be an option to toggle on/off this oversell "feature". I can tell you from experience that if I'm tracking inventory - I'm doing it so I don't oversell it.  Please move this up the ladder to solve.

[Art_Eatables]

I need to add our voice to the ones needing to be able to make a hard cutoff when stock reaches zero.

The entire point of going to Square for our website was because it appeared to track stock. But if it oversells, then it really it doesn't. We have a lot of unique products, and we can't produce them quickly to order. We have to run really limited quantities of products right now because our stuff is perishable.

We keep having people buy things that don't exist, showing up to our store and being angry. Square is making us lose customers when we can't afford to lose a single one.

Please at *least* make this a toggle so we can choose whether or not we want this behavior.

[touringtaps]

I have been tracking this for a while - can we get an update from the development team on an estimated release?

[IceCreamStan]

I make home made ice cream and sell pints using this process.  Somehow I get in to negative inventory states and some times customers still somehow are able to order products online that are sold out.  It really upsets my customer base for them to order my products only to be told that sorry, it turned out our inventory system wasn't working properly.  It makes us look really unprofessional. 

[Jolee1]

For all of you that have been wanting this feature, today we noticed that the items that were sold out in our shop said so on our POS. We use the Square register in the shop and it said it directly under the item, but on my iPad/iPhone it says it above the add button (I will attach a screenshot of this one). 

This feature is very useful when we sell out of a certain pastry, we keep a display upfront and the rest of them in the kitchen. 

I prefer the way it looks on the Square register as opposed to the app. 

For reference, we use the square online store for curbside/pickup orders along with the register in the shop. 

Has anyone else seen this on their register?

Hope this stays around and improves! 

[TaylorP]

I noticed this as well on a couple of my items however, they weren't the correct items. It only showed up on two items that had a positive value in inventory and items that were zero in inventory didn't have the sold out ic

[TreeAmigos]

We also saw this but only on items with multiple variables. Which means they are getting closer. 

Once this feature is finalized it will be a power house for brick and mortars with online sales.

I have to say, this past year square has finally (after years of requesting) released some super important features.

Im hoping this one is next!

[KennedysCoffee]

4 and a half years, 140 replies to the ticket and 6,541 Views.

I am desperate for this feature, yet there is no real commitment from development as to when it will be delivered. There is a clear need for it and so many of us can't believe that such a common sense and integral feature has been overlooked.

@saumaya when can we expect this???????

[adobbratz]

Just writing to second this! We're having issues with Register not showing things as sold when they've been sold online.

Thanks!

[Eventsco]

So, we run events and need to manage online pre event sales and on the door to restrict numbers (due to COVID) going into an event. Our door staff need to know when they can’t sell a ticket, using a separate counter does not make sense as people may have booked and not yet arrived, then all hell breaks loose.

you should have the option to have

a) tracking of stock with fixed end of sales

b) tracking of stock with warning of low and out of stock

c) tracking of stock with the ability to go into negative stock & no warnings.

not difficult, if it can be done by this Saturday, after 4 years we would appreciate it.

[thebaubleeffect]

Wow, I thought it was me and I had set up something wrong.  On-line help was no help at all. 

This is a super important feature!!!! If the item had 0 in stock then how can I sell more??????? Inventory says 0, but a customer was able to purchase 6.  Two days before that another customer order 2.  It's a pain to refund and have to explain why.  This is an important feature.  At this point I am not sure of what to do.  May have to move the site to another provider.  I am told not to delete sold out items because of Google SEO and customers getting the 404 error code.    

[TreeAmigos]

Instead of deleting them, we make them hidden. If a person finds the link they can still access the item. However, it can’t be seen from the normal shop.

we use to leave the items as sold out on the shop, but it becomes overwhelming for the customers. Since we started hiding the items, we’ve noticed an increase in sales.

I don’t think hiding it will affect your SEO

[cvfarm]

I will add my voice to the chorus - how can Square sell an item that does not exist. How many times to I have to explain to my customers that the items they ordered are out of stock - but they are somehow allowed to order them anyway. It makes our company look very unprofessional - like we don't know what we are doing.  I will be looking into other options beside Square. Such a shame that something so important has not been attended to - or even addressed - by Square for so many years!

[KennedysCoffee]

Still no reply to this topic, @saumaya  this isn't good enough!!!!