Feature Request: Set up specific date and time selection for Square Online orders (Pre-orders)

[gelatofiasco]

The title of this post has been edited from the original: How to set up date and time selection for Square Online orders

Hi,

We quickly built a Square/Weebly Online Store this week so that people could place contactless/curbside orders for our gelato shop. It's working great and I love that the tickets print out when it's time to make the order.

We are also implementing a local delivery service where people can preorder with us and we'll deliver it on Friday night. Right now we're doing it by email to take their item order and we respond back with a Square Invoice to capture payment. Has anyone successfully found a way to do local delivery with the Online Store platform?

It would be awesome if besides Pickup or Shipping, merchants could toggle on a Local Delivery button and the merchant could set a few options, such as "Delivery on Friday night, 4-7pm," "Delivery on Saturday afternoon, 12-6pm." Maybe with an option to assign a fee, but that's less important during this emergency response.

Thank you and be safe.

[#2]

@lonestar31 @MCTMN 

We are currently testing Batch Processing in our Beta Community, which may help you out. This is another update to allowing pre-orders on your online store.  We'd love for you to join in the test and provide feedback.

To get started:

Please join our Square Online testing group.
Once accepted there are instructions in the group of how to get started in the test.

[#3]

Hi all! Thank you for jumping into. your thread for pre-orders and more customizable delivery/pick up options. We're excited that this feature is now moving into Beta testing, and we'd love to have you check it out.

Please take a few minutes to ready our Beta Recruiting post- and make sure you're a fit. We're looking to get his launched in the next few days. Also if you've replied to this thread, we will be sending you information on this test via DM as well.

[#4]

The title of this post has been edited from the original: How to set up date and time selection for Square Online orders

Hi,

We quickly built a Square/Weebly Online Store this week so that people could place contactless/curbside orders for our gelato shop. It's working great and I love that the tickets print out when it's time to make the order.

We are also implementing a local delivery service where people can preorder with us and we'll deliver it on Friday night. Right now we're doing it by email to take their item order and we respond back with a Square Invoice to capture payment. Has anyone successfully found a way to do local delivery with the Online Store platform?

It would be awesome if besides Pickup or Shipping, merchants could toggle on a Local Delivery button and the merchant could set a few options, such as "Delivery on Friday night, 4-7pm," "Delivery on Saturday afternoon, 12-6pm." Maybe with an option to assign a fee, but that's less important during this emergency response.

Thank you and be safe.

[LordPies]

@KatM  The turnaround setting does not care what day the pickup is, it's just a setting that makes an automated email say "Item will be ready to pickup on (turnaround setting)"

You cannot pick a specific day. You cannot limit it to the time of the day for items like breakfast menu. I've tried using turnaround setting to sync up the time it takes and it is a challenge to do it daily. Every morning and every night, updating 20+ items just to reduce confused customers. Its difficult when you have holiday specials and want to promote it 1-2 weeks in advance because there is no turnaround setting for 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 days. That means you are limited to "1 week" or "2 weeks" at that point. 

This system was not made for special offers. This wasn't made for allowing pickups of items only available on the day before a holiday. The only scenario in which this system works for you is if your menu is exactly the same every day. My suggestion for Square/weebly, besides allowing us to limit a product turnaround to specific dates and time, is to at least be able to CHANGE THE DATE AND TIME OF PICKUPS so that way we can fix all the orders that constantly confuse people.

Please let us at least be able to seamlessly change the date and time of pickup on orders within the app. 

[JustinC]

@ChefAngela77 - thanks for expanding on your suggestion. As Nika said, offering day and time slots for delivery is a feature request we're currently tracking. 

We'll loop you in if anything changes in the future! 

[JustinC]

@JimW - Hooray to your first post! 🥳️ Hope you're liking the Community so far. 

Sending you over to a thread where another Seller asked the same question as you. I let them know that setting as specific date for pick up isn't available with Square's Online Store, but it's a request that's becoming increasingly popular, so thanks for adding your voice. 

When we have updates to share, you'll be notified here so keep tabs on this thread. 

[jfaigel]

I like the new delivery feature. Is there a way to allow the customers to choose a time during operating hours for the delivery to be delivered? 

[Kassi_]

Hey there, @jfaigel - 

I moved your post to a thread for this particular Feature Request. Other sellers have requested a similar request. 

Once we have more information on this Feature we will post to this thread. Our Product Team keeps an eye on these. 

Thank you! 

[ChefAngela77]

Thanks, yes, if folks can pick their own window, that's great.

Right now, we have to go in and modify our "prep time" each day so the checkout area says the correct (and only) day (Fridays) that we deliver.

Also, when people get their email confirmations, it says "order ready within ___X___" days and it's both not correct, and it changes each by the hour..

thanks!

[rich4747]

I have a baking business where I deliver my products once a week on Fridays.  I do not deliver any other day of the week.  However, I haven't found a setting in Square where I can let customers know this.  As it is, they get an automatic email telling them a range of dates when they might receive their delivery.  This just creates confusion on their end because my web site says the delivery will be on Friday, but they get an email telling them otherwise.  I am really hoping Square fixes this soon, as one of the main reasons I switched to Square was because it was supposed to be friendly to businesses that want to do home delivery, and this falls far short of expectations.  

[KGVmonograms]

Has anyone found an efficient/effective way to run pre-orders in your online store? I don't necessarily want to set a "stock" inventory amount, because there's not a limited quantity that can be purchased. I have currently set all pre-order items to a stock of 1 in each size. However, the online store now tells customers that there are "only a few left," which isn't true.

I can see that users have been asking for a pre-order option since around 2016 and that is only within my 5-7 minutes of researching. Can we please get this function rolling for all the pre-order businesses?

[PreOrder_Apps]

Did someone say Pre-Order? Hi! We're actually an official Square Partner and make the most powerful pre-order mobile apps in the world. 

We've done a lot of work integrating with Square's inventory, but also making other stand-alone features that help our Square Clients deal with inventory in various ways, such as: 

- A universal sku, like "hide" that hides any item(s) instantly (you put this in your Square SKUs)

- Toggle buttons in "our" Square Dashboard we give you to manage your custom mobile app, which can instantly hide any item(s) you're out of stock of (you can do this from right inside your app)

- Using Square's inventory, which instantly hides any item whose inventory reaches 0

etc. 

Check us out: https://getpreorder.com we'd be happy to help. 

- Ken

[KGVmonograms]

I’m not sure how $75 setup and $50/month is cost-effective for any small/side business owner. I’ll keep this in mind if my business ever grows to the point I believe it would be beneficial.