How can I modify the online store so customers can add a message to be written on a cake?

[MIrabellesBaker]

The title of this thread has been edited from the original: Writing on a cake

I have a bakery--and an online store (Square/Weebly). Is there a way to modify the online store so that customers can add a message that would be written on a cake?

-Andrew

[crystalimages · Accepted solution]

For your online store, yes!

This can be done by going to the online store in the dashboard. 

Go to the item library and open the item in question.

  (online store item library, not the standard dashboard library)

Go to the modifiers section, manage modifiers.

+Create New 

Choose between select from a list and Textbox,

           obviously Textbox for a custom message.

Give the textbox a label/name

You can even set a character limit for how many letters/spaces/etc can be in the message. I would imagine for cakes you would want a fairly short message.

If you Charge more for larger messages, you could set the limit low on one modifier (short message/ up to 20? characters) and higher on another modifier (long message up to XXX Characters)

You might even use the "select from a list" for Standard Messages and a short message textbox for the name.  Say you have Happy Birthday, Feliz Cumpleaños, Congratulations, etc in the list and a spot for just a name.

Lists for icing color? Cake flavor? Although you may already have these types of modifiers in your item library.

The down side is, these custom text boxes are not available on the POS. Online only. So, if you take in person sales with the Square app on a phone or tablet, you would have to use the notes section of the item to input these messages.

My company has this same issue. We have to write in custom notes for every single sale and there are several parts to the notes depending on the sale. Unfortunately, one portion of the notes is often missed and slows down productivity and can even upset customers when we have to call them to fix the order.

It would be amazing if square could cross this over to the POS App also.

I hope this helps. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

[MIrabellesBaker]

Thanks for such a thorough, clear answer. 

We are trying to reduce phone calls and let people who are comfortable with ordering online do it that way. Our demographic is not especially online-savvy--we have been in business for 30 years-- but we are hoping to grow the business with people who are adapted to e-commerce. 

It will be interesting to see if we can get some people to make the shift. 

Thank you again.

[Tropicakes]

Aloha from Hawaii!

We have a similar business with custom cakes, 

We use modifiers as explained and it works great (Beside the LONG checkout txts with all the chosen modifiers)

I wanted to ask you, Because its custom cakes, it's all scheduled pickup / Delivery, We get orders for next month or for a few days from now, 

Did you manage to work it out in the Orders section? It doesn't show the delivery/pickup date, Only order date 😕 So you must open each order to see, the worst part is that in the APP, iPhone or Ipad it doesn't even show the date! only desktop.

I thought it would be able to maybe integrate with google calenders or Square appointments but nothing, We need to print the orders (Again, Only from desktop, not possible on the app) and manually organize them per date,

Not so much the reason we wanted that website to run "Automatically", Any ideas on how do you do it with your custom orders?

THANKS!

[MIrabellesBaker]

We are waiting on an appointment with a Square rep to get things set up. As for how we're using it, we are hoping to capture "simple" orders online. For instance, for folks who just want a cake from our regular lineup--maybe with some writing on it. 

For cakes that are more customized--where the customer picks a cake flavor, filling, and frosting--we will still take those orders by phone. We find that our longtime customers prefer to speak to someone on the phone. but we have a growing number of new customers who what to get it done online--and don't need a lot of customization. 

If it saves calls, the plan is to expand the number of items we offer online.

-David

[Joe]

Thanks for stepping in to assist here, @crystalimages! We appreciate it 😇📈

[dbmusic]

I've been adding the modifiers with both check box options and text but recently I have been update to modify my modifiers.  I've only been able to add the list of modifiers options super basic.  Has anyone else experienced this and how did you get around it?

[crystalimages]

First, I want to be sure you're trying to edit from the "Online Store" dashboard, not the regular dashboard.
The custom modifiers aren't available in the regular dashboard.

From what I'm gathering, you can't add new modifiers? Only select ones you've already create?

I had a little trouble editing one last week. I'm trying to remember what happened. 
I might have been in the wrong dashboard, but I feel like the layout has changed a little and I just wasn't seeing the correct spot.

In the Online Dashboard, go to Items, Site Items, select the item in question, scroll down to the modifiers section and select Manage Modifiers on the right, then you should see +Create New on the right above your list of current modifiers.

Or are you doing this and it's not saving?

If you're not seeing this or it's not saving, you might want to clear your browsing history/cache on your browser. 
I recently had an issue with messages not loading, but found clearing this made it work again.

Basically, your browser is trying to load old information for the website and needs cleared to load new info.
If that doesn't work, you'll probably need to talk to someone from support.

I also want to clarify, you're talking about modifiers, not options. 
I never found the options very useful for our business. I guess it's more useful for sizes of clothes or color options. I don't have that.  And now I don't see how to add them to new items, maybe that has to be added from the regular dashboard before I can edit them on the online dashboard.