Lead Times in Square Online

[canadiancutters]

Hello!

Square Online is missing a fundamental component for makers: Lead Time! They have prep time for Pickup & Delivery, but not for shipped items. In fact, shipped items states that it's immediate for some options. As a 3D printing business, this absolutely doesn't work. We had a conversation with Square Support and were told that lead times are not something that square currently supports, but I'm curious if anyone has either found the option to do this, or come up with an inventive way to deal with. Right now we're using a pop-up notification that alerts customers that all orders have a 14 day lead time. It'd be nice to use that notification for conversions instead.

You can view our site at https://www.canadiancutters.ca

[maxpete]

@canadiancutters thanks for your question! Tagging in some members who might be able to advise on workarounds @homeprogreen, @Minion, and @thewebsitechick

[homeprogreen]

Can’t help with this one since i don’t use Square Online

[mamac]

I'm not sure if I'm in the right topic here but here is my issue. I make stained glass in small batches and sell at a Art Market. Now I also post my product on a Square Online site created by Weebly for which I pay $300 US / year. Because my product sells out it is sometimes marked as "SOLD OUT" online. I tried to figure out the preorder buttons on the online site but it was obviously not designed for my retail business at all. Plus when it was activated the customer still could not order the item. Could not put it it their cart.

Now at this time I was using "tracking" to let me know how many items I had of one product such as my sun catchers. (You can see my site at www.carolynsbeehive.com for clarification). I asked support and searched the community for answers to my problem but it seems as though a lot of Square is focused towards restaurant business and not businesses such as mine and that's cool. One has to deal.

So I think I found a work around, but it involves sacrifices. So I hope that Square might be listening here, because I am a small business and I already pay over $300 a year for just the web site which, honestly hasn't brought me much business. That's a tale for another time. So, NO, I don't/can't want to upgrade and buy more of your services that won't help me.

Here's my workaround: First of all you have to sacrifice your tracking of inventory and turn that off. Because when the site sees that you are out, it will mark your product as SOLD OUT and your customers will be prevented from adding it to their carts.

Then you have to go into each item (and I was promised I could batch this process but I can't find where I can do this Square developers, what happened?) and change the fullfillment to however long it will take you to make that item if a customer orders it. ie: a stained glass panel will take me 2 weeks to make and ship. (I've added in time cuz I'm busy, y'all. I've got sh*t to do. I'm running a small business here, you get it.) Also change the preorder limit if you wish, just in case someone says I want 500 of your widgets in two weeks. Gotta be careful there too. Lotsa business is good, but it can turn into an episode of "I Love Lucy" in a bad way.

And voilá, it worked!!! But I had to sacrifice my tracking, which really sucked, especially when I had created a new item. So it's an item by item fix. But it's a fix. Hope it's the one you are looking for.

Carolyn

[Minion]

Yeah I'm not a Square Online User either.  @mamac seems to have a decent workaround that seems like it may be fitting for that scenario. Sorry I couldn't be of any help 

[JTPets]

This is a great feature request, and I think should be actioned.

I have also suggested in the past for items that are out of stock. We should be able to set a time frame for item fulfillment from an purchase order level. Vendors should have order placement and delivery settings in their setup that allow for sale beyond 0 with a statement of ESTIMATED FULFILLMENT date determined by the vendor management system or item level control

[Cubanita]

The problem with using a term like “lead time” is it’s an industry term. It’s not necessarily a term your customer would understand. All they can’t to know is when will they get it. I would use the function that’s already there & just say items ship in 2-4 weeks. Then beat that time if you can. You can add in the description that everything is made to order & ships in x time. As long as the buyer understands the timing before they purchase, you should be fine using the shipping function to communicate your lead time.

[mamac]

Thank you, thank you Cubanita! I don't know why I had such a brain block on the wording of my description but you said it so simply: "this item is made to order and will ship in blank weeks." Sheesh, it's like when you forget how to spell the easiest word.  Thank you so much.