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!

[lovemychaos]

Yes.. the POS is different than the online store.  

We type all the info into the ticket name when we're doing phone orders.  so instead of just typing their name, we add all the rest too.

i.e.  John Doe, 123-456-7890, 111 good times st.

You would need to have open tickets enabled for the Square POS. 

In Square for Restaurants, you would want custom ticket names enabled.  

[katejdupre]

Is there an option to add a tip???

[Joe]

Hi there, @katejdupre 👋 Thanks for reaching out! 

Take a look at this Best Answer for @Isabelle__ for step-by-step process for adding tips to your Pickup Orders. Let me know if you have any questions! 

[square_marc]

Hi. Lots of questions. 

1. While these video are helpful, is there not of how Weebly interacts with my Square Register? I am still not clear what happens when a customer places an order.

2. When I imported my items into Weebly, they are all listed as "Physical goods" not "Food and Beverage." I have hundreds of items. How do I update them?

3. I have enabled ApplePay under Checkout settings, however customers are not presented that option during their checkout. 

4. I also see Square is promoting Ordering.app. Do I need both? What is the difference between Weebly and Ordering.app? 

[AshleyK]

Hi @square_marc thanks for asking!

1: When orders are placed for your online store, there are a few things that can happen depending on how you have your Register set up. In most settings, sellers will have a printer scheduled to automatically print online orders and have a notification of a new order pop up. You can read how this works for the POS app in this help article.

2: Unfortunately there isn't a way to bulk change the item type. 

3: Apple and Weebly engineering are aware of the issue where Apple Pay doesn't always show up during checkout and they are working on it. They have a temporary workaround where Apple Pay appears if your customers are checking out in a private window.

4: The ordering.app option is simply a 3rd party provider you can use for pickup only orders. You do not have to have both at all, but it can be a good option if you aren't completely satisfied with our pickup settings. We have a small help article that you can look at to see if this is a good fit for you. 

[candlepins]

can you change your online store menu if you dont want to copy/paste your entire retail menu?

[Lovefoodcentral]

Hi @candlepins, 

If I understand you correctly... your online and in-house menu can be different.  Items will only show up in your ONLINE site if you click the VISIBLE button when editing an item.

😉

[PSD]

I would like to pre-sell items and attach a specified pickup date to them. Is this possible?

[nika]

Hey @PSD- Pre-selling items and setting a future pickup date for those orders is currently a feature request. This has been a popular request that we're still tracking, so keep an eye out here for any future announcements if this changes in the future!

[lovemychaos]

I get around this right now by making a required modifier for the item.  The customer must choose a future date/time for pickup, and I just save the order tickets for the designated pickup day.  

Messy... but it works for now.  

[RachLAnn84]

With this idea, would I have to include a modifier for EVERY item I currently sell?

[RachLAnn84]

Hi. We will be taking cookie orders from the beginning of October to mid November.  However, people can ONLY pick up their orders on  December 12.

Is there a way to set the "pick-up date" for this specific date?  Also, what would I choose for 'prep time'?

Thanks!

[RachLAnn84]

Hi. We will be taking cookie orders from the beginning of October to mid November.  However, people can ONLY pick up their orders on  December 12.

Is there a way to set the "pick-up date" for this specific date?  Also, what would I choose for 'prep time'?

Thanks!

[AshleyK]

Hey! I've merged your post with a similar thread so we can keep all this feedback in one place. This is currently a feature request, but I believe you can find some workarounds within this thread. Thank you!

[IlPrimo01]

How does SQ online store work for a restaurant without SQ pos system? We use Aloha (begrudgingly) and are locked into a contract for another year. My thought is that a SQ tablet can be staged near an aloha terminal, similar to an UberEats tablet. When an order comes in via SQ, an employee manually rings it into our aloha POS. Does this work?

Also, due to our large volume we limit our capacity to 10 orders every 15 minutes. Is it possible to include capacity restrictions like this in the online store?

[jmking]

Hi @IlPrimo01 - what you're suggesting is totally possible. You could set up a tablet next to your regular POS and monitor for incoming Square Online Store orders, then key them back into your existing POS.

Another option would be to get a second ticket printer and connect it to the Square app. This way you don't have to enter the order into your main POS. In fact, you may be able to connect your existing printer(s) to the app depending on their make/model and connectivity. More about that here: https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/6050-create-a-printer-station-and-connect-a-printer

Finally, Square Online Store does offer the ability to set a maximum number of online orders per 15 minute intervals.

Hope this helps!

[IlPrimo01]

jmking,

Thanks for your response. Can you point me toward the section of your online store that allows a restaurant to regulate capacity settings?

One of my other locations will be moving away from Aloha toward the end of the summer. What is the process to learn more about Square POS for restaurants? Do you have reps on the ground in East Tennessee?

[Alex_]

Thank you for jumping in to lend a hand here @IlPrimo01, much appreciated. 

[IlPrimo01]

What is the process for learning more about Square's seller ecosystem? We want to give it a chance as we are moving away from Aloha and considering using Toast - mostly for the same reasons to consider SQ. Ability for online ordering and cloud based storage.

Do you have reps on the ground in East Tennessee that I can learn more from?

[IlPrimo01]

Can you point me toward the section of your online store that allows a restaurant to regulate capacity settings?

[sayra]

Hello @IlPrimo01. 

Can you please provide me with more details on what you are trying to achieve? What kind of capacity settings are you looking for? Are you referring to our pickup & delivery orders where you can space out the number of deliveries allotted every 15 minutes?  

[IlPrimo01]

I want a maximum limit of orders built into every 15 minute time increment. My restaurant cannot accommodate more than 10 orders in any given increment. My fear with Square Online is that I am essentially expanding my footprint indefinitely, so if 25 orders come in all at once it could jeopardize the integrity of my operations. 

Separate inquiry, I run daily specials each night of the week. Can you show me how to limit an items availability to a particular day of the week?