Customer Calculated Estimates/Quotes?

[cscstore]

Hello Square Community!

We're a clothing store that offers custom prints on some of the garments we offer.
Managing various orders and details can get tedious, so we were looking for a good way to generate quotes for customers.

We're currently trying to figure out a way to have customers calculate their own Estimates/Quotes. Is there a way to do that with existing Square tools? Or is there a good way to do that with an integration for Square?

We just want a way for a customer to access a link or QR code (similar to Square Gift Cards) where they can see how much an order is before passing it along to us. We would set which items they can use (certain shirts and printing items), and then they can go from there.

The way we currently use Square Estimates are in person or over the phone, and we manually input the items/pricing on our end. It takes up a lot of time, so we can't focus on the actual printing side of the job.

We would prefer something within Square's ecosystem to make use of our existing items and inventory.

Any suggestions or solutions would be appreciated.
Thank you!

[MayaP]

Hey there @cscstore, really neat idea. At this time the customer cannot calculate their estimates. I will tag some super sellers who might be able to provide some workarounds. Thank you @Candlestore @TheRealChipA  @ryanwanner!

[TheRealChipA]

Thanks for the tag @MayaP.  @cscstore I’m thinking about your post.  Nothing to offer yet, however.  Yesterday I had a piece of equipment fail (another 10-year old one so it had a great life!) so I’m scrambling to decide exactly what I want in its place.  But I’m bookmarking this thread and I will circle back.  Hopefully others will, too.

[Candlestore]

@cscstore ;

I am thinking on this the best I can do is have your Base Item at a Price of $x.xx.

Then have required Modifiers I believe is the term, not sure if variation or some other term Square uses.

Then have 1 modifier of each section Required.

So like You have a T-shirt for say $12.95.

Base T-shirt at 12.90.

you have 5 Modifiers that are required,

Make them choose a Modifier / variations and If they do not choose one that is a cost they get charged .01

If they want a Blank T-shirt with 0 modifers - after choosing no modifers times 5 this would add .05 to the 12.90 to get the price to 12.95.  The reason I saw charge .o1 for the modifier or variation is I think you need a price for those or they do not appear.  I could be wrong.  If not show No modifier / Variation with a price of $0.00 or no charge.  

The reason I am not sure of this is because I do not use Square for my website, and just know of the different variations but a Variation requires a Price, and $0.00 does not qualify lol.

But you would have to know the upcharge prices for an iron on, and embroidery add on etc to add to the base price.  

I am throwing this out here so other that do use Square might be able to build off of my basic Idea to give you a better answer to get your project to work fully.

[BernadetteA]

Hi @cscstore 👋

What is the reason for wanting the customers to calculate a quote of something they want, but not actually purchase the item? Let's say someone chooses a shirt with x amount of customizations, and passes that over to you. Would you not charge them in case it is not possible to create what they are looking for? 

I believe @Candlestore has the right idea to use the modifier option since it sounds like you may have a lot of different choices. Modifiers can be setup to be free OR add an extra amount on the base price. 

I'm still a little confused on how the whole process is meant to work. Can you clarify a bit more with maybe an example scenario of why you prefer they get a quote to send to you instead of just purchasing? 

[cscstore]

Hey everyone!
We appreciate the feedback. We'll test out @Candlestore method. It seems like a convenient work around. I'll reply directly for feedback

To answer @BernadetteA 's question, we believe it would speed up the B2C interaction and improve the overall customer experience (in-person, over the phone & online).
Most of our day-to-day interactions include customers wanting to get an order for shirts printed but not having details, like garment quantities, sizes and other pricing variables, ready when they come in.
So we have to stop our production work to focus on getting all of the details out of our customers.

The common question we get in person and online is, "How much for a shirt with a print?".

For that question alone we would need to know:

• Brand of Shirt
• Style of Shirt
• Size of Shirt
• Final Qty of Shirts
• Type of Logo/Image
• Size of Print
• Placement of Print
• Will it be the same print for all shirts, or different for each.

It is currently all manual input on our end to calculate a price, so we speak to customers, and type up everything using estimates/invoices or our POS devices. Sometimes when we think we have finalized the details for an order, something is changed at the end. We then have to make manual adjustments to reflect the changes.

We do take our time in getting the details down, but when it comes to managing multiple orders and answering questions about different variables and pricing (in person, over the phone and online), a customer inquiry can go from a few minutes to an interaction that lasts over 30+ minutes.

More often than not we get an order placed, but at the expense of time needed for pending orders.

The live quotes/estimates would give customers control over exploring our pricing/discounts for garment and printing variables at their own pace.
They could have all that information available for them in order to place the exact order they need with little to no input from us (both in-person and online).
The added benefit of us receiving a quote vs a final payment is that we can confirm with customers if we can deliver on their requirements and deadlines.

If customers submit a quote for an order where we can work with the requests, quantities, and deadline then we can approve the quote and have them pay the approved quote.

If there are issues with our inventory, issues with customer requests, or there is not enough time to meet the requested deadline, we would rather let the customer know with a revised quote/invoice than to finalize a sale on an order we can't guarantee to complete or lose money on an order we needed to adjust.
But I'm sure there are businesses that would benefit from setting a system like this to auto approve quotes to receive payments immediately.

Another suggestion regarding the topic is having the ability to create separate live quote templates for the type of services offered (1-color print on a page, and Multi-color print on another). It would be the Square User's job to make sure their customers are accessing the correct one.

The cherry on top for us would be if there was a section for customers to attach/upload their designs to our desired cloud drive (Google, Dropbox, etc.), but I won't get too ahead of myself haha.

I believe if we had a custom form/estimate/invoice page (similar to Square Gift Cards) where customers can see items the Seller allows on a given form, they can explore all of the pricing information on their own time. We can promote the page(s) to our customers so it streamlines how we receive and organize potential orders from them. Once we receive the quotes, we can view them similarly to the Invoices and Estimates tab (Name, Phone#, Email, etc.) for review.

If the Live-Quote function is too specific to our line of work to implement broadly, I think a robust Square Form Builder that exists outside of Square Online would be great as well.
Each Square User can design their form to their particular needs, like deciding on what customer contact information is necessary, what items/inventory/services to offer, customer-filled text/multiple choice/check boxes, payment options (toggling certain payments, or set to send to Square User as a quote), etc.

I know this is a lot, but I hope it clarifies our initial post haha.
Appreciate you taking the time for getting back to us @BernadetteA @Candlestore @TheRealChipA @MayaP !

[TheRealChipA]

@cscstore This is definitely an intriguing idea.  The idea of having customer-facing estimates/quotes that could then be turned into orders has a lot of potential, not only for your needs but I believe for the Square Seller Community as a whole.  I’m betting that @BernadetteA can pass on this thread to some product managers for them to consider.

[BernadetteA]

Hmmm... we do not have a feature like that at the moment, but it definitely sounds like something that you could post to the Ideate boards.

For now, my initial thought is to set up your items with the modifiers so that your customer can see exactly how much the item would cost. They could add to the cart, then apply a discount/coupon for 100% off, and submit the order. You would receive the "order" without actually charging the customer, and would be able to follow up with them to finalize the details. You could then use Square Invoices to bill them. 

The other option is to use a contact form. The internal contact form available in the site editor is not super robust (i.e. no way to upload a file) but I believe Jotform has an upload option, and you would be able to embed a form onto your website. 

I'm going to mull this over a bit to see if I can think of any other suggestions for you! 

[cscstore]

I appreciate your time and feedback, @BernadetteA !

I submitted the idea to the Ideate Board under the Invoices section.
As @TheRealChipA mentioned, I hope that it would be something that all Square Users can benefit from.

I'll experiment with all of the suggestions and see what works.

Thanks again!

[joseph7]

Yes, you can use Square to let customers calculate their own quotes. Square's existing tools like Square Invoices or Square Online allow you to create custom pricing options for your products. You can also integrate a third-party app or use custom code with Square's API to build a quote calculator directly on your website. This would let customers choose options, enter details, and see an estimate before placing an order.