[Important] Update to your coupons on Square Online

[kcapps]

Hi Sellers! 👋

If you have existing coupons on Square Online, we wanted to notify you of some upcoming changes to your coupons on Square Online. Starting on 25 March 2024, creating and managing coupons is moving from your Square Online dashboard to Square Marketing, our product suite of marketing automation tools.

This change will allow you to manage and edit coupons in one central location—whether for your online website or email campaigns.

Here is what’s changing: 

• Existing coupons - Any existing coupons created within Square Online will no longer be active starting 25 March 2024. You’ll need to recreate those as new coupons within Square Marketing. 

• New coupons - Any new coupons will need to be created in Square Marketing, not within your Square Online dashboard.

• Supported coupon types - You can offer coupons for £ or % off for all items, or at the category or item level, as well as coupons for free shipping or delivery. 

• Limiting coupon usage per customer* - To apply limits to a coupon per customer, you’ll need to use the “Offer a coupon” template in Square Marketing—a paid feature.

Creating and managing coupons in Square Marketing is free and does not require a subscription. For enhanced features such as creating personalised coupons and sending coupons in Square Marketing emails, upgrade to a paid subscription.

If you have existing coupons, we recommend that you take action immediately and recreate these Coupons in Square Marketing to minimize disruptions to your business. 

If you have not created coupons using Square Online, you do not need to take any action at this time. 

To learn more about creating coupons using Square Marketing, read this help article. 

Have questions about how this change affects you? Comment below and let us know. 

[Cobbles]

Hello Kelsey @kcapps 

Sadly, I have to say that the way this change has been implemented is very poorly considered for existing coupon users.

We have over 50 coupons set up (mostly given to individual customers, but not targeted at them specifically) and would expect Square to have included a way to migrate these to the new Marketing area.

There is nothing, we are expected to input them all again.

The new setup in Marketing has been released with many existing coupon features missing - they will apparently be added later.

Why do the changeover before it has been properly completed and hugely inconvenience a large number of your users by removing existing functionality that they are relying on?

A few examples:

• Our existing coupons use underscore characters, these are not allowed in the new system, so the codes we have given out can’t be created in the new area. This will annoy customers who try to use the codes we have already given them and find they don't work.
• Most of our coupons are single use, there is no way to set this in the new system, so we could lose revenue by double use of a code.
• I also see that the option to apply a discount over a certain spend amount is missing, so what are sellers with; e.g. £5 off over £50 spend discounts, supposed to do?
• The new coupons aren't even editable!

Why has this change been rolled out before matching current functionality and without considering the implications to existing users? It shows a very concerning lack of thought for your sellers.

You say "If you have existing coupons, we recommend that you take action immediately and recreate these Coupons in Square Marketing to minimize disruptions to your business."  Disruptions to business are unavoidable because you cannot recreate the same coupons in Square Marketing!

Please delay the implementation of this switch over until it is fully completed - you are going to have a large number of very unhappy sellers when they realise how their business has been disrupted.

[Cobbles]

Has sense prevailed and this change been quietly cancelled?

I am not getting the warning to move the coupons any more, and one I just created in the Online section was valid when I tried a dummy online purchase.

[JJ_]

Hello there @Cobbles

Yes, our team has decided to postpone the completion of coupons over to the Square Dashboard. Stay tuned for future updates as this is still on the roadmap. 

[Cobbles]

We're relieved to hear it - thanks for the update

[Cobbles]

We notice that the migration is now being forced on 2 Sep, yet the new marketing vouchers still have crippled functionality compared to existing ones.

In particular there is no option to limit usage to once per customer, or just once in total.

So we give a code to a customer which is meant to be a one-off discount, but they apparently can use it multiple times until we  disable it. Have we missed something here?

If we haven't, why has this feature not being implemented?

This could potentially cost us and other businesses a lot of money.

It's very concerning that real world usage doesn't appear to have been properly thought through in this change.

[BradenSQ · Accepted solution]

Hi @Cobbles! We understand your concern. The features you mentioned (limiting usage of vouchers to once per customer or once in total), as well as others like "100% off entire sale" and "restrict a voucher to sales over a certain amount," are about to begin final testing and will be released in the next few weeks. For anyone that is using these voucher features in Square Online today, we will wait on their transition to Marketing until the features are available.

Thank you for your feedback, and let us know if you have any other questions!

[Cobbles]

That’s good to know - thanks. We often sell instore gift vouchers with variable amounts and unique codes so it’s a really important part of our business / revenue stream.