How to Sell Online and Allow for Pickup Orders

[Tom]

This post was updated by a community moderator on April 20, 2020 to reflect app improvements and feature enhancements.

Hello Seller Community,

As news changes by the minute, I see the new reality of social distancing changing my corner of the world. Our team also heard from a few restaurant owners within the Seller Community across the country and we wanted to offer some solutions that can help you find new ways to reach your customers.

If your restaurant faces reduced foot traffic or if your local government instructed you to pause operations, Square Online can help you continue with orders by enabling curbside pickup and local delivery.

How it works:

1. Your existing Item Library automatically imports into your Square Online site.
2. Customer orders made via Square Online connect directly with your Square Point of Sale system.
3. You won’t have to change your current process and can go forward with accepting online orders quickly.
   
   

If you haven't tried Square Online, check out this video for a comprehensive setup guide. Store owners and similar businesses should check out our tutorial for retailers instead.

For more specifics on enabling these features, have a look at these resources:

• Turn on Curbside Pickup
• Turn on Local Delivery 
  
  

As we come together to face these challenges, I continue to be inspired by my friends, family, and my favorite local businesses. If any other sellers have questions or insight on what's worked well so far — please weigh in below.

Hope this helps you navigate through the days ahead, and we'll certainly keep you updated as we're able to remove obstacles!

[AdamB]

Hi @jhavens! Are you looking to have a minimum prep time for orders? You can set that up in your pickup settings so that there's always a minimum amount of time before a customer can pickup an order. You'll find this option in the location settings in Settings > Pickup.

[jhavens]

no.

I'm aware of that option, but we would love to be able to adjust it for different items and or allow us to adjust it during peak times.  as a brewery our peak fluctuates tremendously and people get frustrated if they have to wait longer than what we show on square.

Right now, We want to be able to force all orders to define their own a pick up time in 15 minute blocks (1pm, 1:15pm, 1:30pm: 1:45pm: 2pm). 

This will allow us the ability to manage inventory purchasing and daily sales volumes (especially of fresh foods), properly staff during peak hours (which otherwise would be unpredictable), and say no one orders for the last hour or 2 we would close early.

We need to minimize staffing costs as much as possible in this difficult time for businesses.  So rather than sit there hoping there will be sales we would love to know when the sales end as much in advance as possible.

if we get to 6pm and no orders have been placed for 7 or 8pm we will close.  to save the lost labor costs.  

[jhavens]

The weebly site needs some serious help for functionality.

1. Cant hide sections

2. Cant hide specific variations of items (using inventory to do this makes customers irate and wastes their time).

Regards...

[ChaparralCoffee]

We already have a website, how do I use this but with my own website from Square Space?

[jmking]

Hi @ChaparralCoffee - check out my reply to a similar question here: https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/General-Discussion/How-to-Sell-Online-and-Allow-for-Pickup-Orders...

Long story short, you can either publish your Square Online Store to chaparralcoffee.square.site and link to it from your Squarespace site, or you can publish your Square Online Store to a subdomain of your existing custom domain (something like ordering.yourdomain.com)

[burrito]

Is.... this... only available for Weebly websites?

[burrito]

If this is not available to the full Square marketplace outside of Weebly enable websites, this was not only SUPER confusing, a MASSIVE waste of time to figure out ourselves, and also a HUGE misdirection to Square customers.

Updates and direction appreciated so we are not spinning wheels and chasing tales if this is the case. Currently publicized instructions need updating if otherwise.

[Vibe]

We began online orders for curbside pick up yesterday and it is declining most of our customers’ payments. I’ve contacted support, and asked for updates but didn’t get a response today. 

[AdamB]

Are you still having trouble, @Vibe, and if so have you been able to speak with the support team yet?

[Vibe]

No. I haven't gotten any response. 

I am asking my customers to not use the online order site anymore. It is now charging my customers and we are not getting alerts. 

[JohnsonFarms]

I notice that the email said you are waiving fees for curbside pick-up and/or delivery options.  What is this fee going to be and why is it going to be?

[AdamB]

Thanks for your question, @JohnsonFarms!  As we get feedback from customers and assess future needs and improvements, we may assess how much it may cost, if anything.

[JohnsonFarms]

Why would it cost us anything?  It is a service we provide.  It is just a button or a click that you've put on the website for the service.  We've paid for a website, a domain and y'all get a higher percentage of our sales via the website already.  It is clearly going to be a cost to us in the near future because Square has said they are waiving the cost for the next 3 months in the email.  I would like to know what you plan on charging us in 3 months so I can make so business decisions or changes to how i accept payments.

[Lovefoodcentral]

Hi Tom, 

Thank you for the info on your curbside pickup option.  I'm in the process of setting up our online store for our cafe and was wondering how the orders will come into our POS system.  Specifically, how will we know there is an order to fill? 

I read in your post "Customer orders made via Square Online Store connect directly with your Square Point of Sale system."  Let me know what this looks like so we can integrate seamlessly.

Thanks again!

[Bigreds]

Check mark keeps leaving curbside box after I check it...it’s not saving into system?

[isabelle]

Hey @Bigreds-

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community. 

Do you already have pickup enabled for all your locations? Is it the checkbox in the picture below that you're unable to check off? 

Please reply with a screenshot of what you're seeing on your end if you can! I also would suggest using Google Chrome while logged into your Online Dashboard if you aren't already. That's the browser that our website is most compatible with. 

Also, I went ahead and moved your post to this thread so you can see the other responses. I look forward to hearing from you! 

[pjjammy]

Hi! thanks so much for all you guys are doing @ Square to help!  Question, how do we know we got an on line order? does a screen pop up on our PoS? 

thanks

pj

[Lovefoodcentral]

Hi @pjjammy 

I was just on the phone with Weebly support on just this matter.  I haven't actually gotten an order yet, but I was instructed how to update our POS ipad so we receive order tickets when an order is placed.

On your POS ipad go to Settings; click "Print Orders" and turn on Automatically Print New Orders.  That does it.  The system is also supposed to send you an email.

Good luck!

ct

[Bittersweetbk]

When will the 'local delivery' option be available? I see it on the back end but I'm not able to toggle it on. Thanks!

[Tom]

Hey @Bittersweetbk — good news! Local delivery just went live. Check out this post for more details: Square Online Store: Turn on Local Delivery.

[VickiVails]

To accept online orders, do I need a Square website in addition to my own website?