Using my own website to manage inventory from Square

[Mindy123]

Hello, I have my own website and decided to switch to Square to manage my inventory because I also do pop-up markets and square is good for the undergo sales. How do I manage my inventory using my own website? Specifically, how do I select some items to be visible on my website and some items not? Thank you.

[JK_Fiber_Art · Accepted solution]

Hi Mindy123,

We have our own site and setup a free Square online site to sell - we simply provide a link from our site to our Square site that has our items - it's basically seamless to our customers.  We also sell in person.  Behind the scenes we setup two Categories, one for Studio Items (in person) and one for Virtual Shop (online).  Any item that we want to sell online is added to the Virtual Shop Category and any item we sell in person is added to our Studio Items Category.  

[JK_Fiber_Art · Accepted solution]

Hi Mindy123,

We have our own site and setup a free Square online site to sell - we simply provide a link from our site to our Square site that has our items - it's basically seamless to our customers.  We also sell in person.  Behind the scenes we setup two Categories, one for Studio Items (in person) and one for Virtual Shop (online).  Any item that we want to sell online is added to the Virtual Shop Category and any item we sell in person is added to our Studio Items Category.  

[Mindy123]

Thank you for the reply. Do you have to pay a fee monthly to have the Square website? Looks like what I really want our pages to then link back to my own website but I’m reading that I’ll have to pay a monthly fee for that? Thank you, Mindy.

[JK_Fiber_Art]

Depends on your needs - they have 3 plans - we use the Free one because our needs are "basic" and we already have our own Domain.  If there's something in the paid plans you absolutely need, you can always upgrade from the Free plan. 

[Candlestore · Accepted solution]

@Mindy123 ;

As I see this is your first post let me welcome you to the Square Sellers Community.

Since you said you already have a website and did not mention if it is through Square or some other site it is hard for us to answer.  Now in general you can export your Current catalog as a CSV and import it to your website as long as you can import the Quatities also.  Or you can just add the items to your online catalog for Popup sales. 

What I do on a nightly basis, if your website does not have an integration to Square for Inventory, is I export my catalog which has SKU's and GTINs along with the current quantity.  I then upload this csv to my websites catalog and then all quantities are updated.

There are also some integrations like Zapier that can do this automatically for you but they cost money depending on how many transactions or Zaps you need.

Since there are multiple websites and configurations, a blanket question like this only gets a blanket answer of the preceeding reply.  Now if you look on your website for Square Integrations or look on Square for integrations for webhosts you may find your answer.  The other thing to do is how do I integrate web host XYZ with Square for tracking Inventory too?   This will let people know which host you use and someone may actually tell you how they do it between the two.

[Mindy123]

hello, thank you for the reply and yes, sorry if that was not clear I have my own website outside of Square. So as I dig further into this, it looks like I’m gonna have to pay monthly to have pages created in Square that I can then link back to my website to manage my inventory is this correct? I’m trying not to have to pay because I already have other fees, I pay on a monthly basis. Am I reading this wrong that I’ll have to pay a fee to create Pages to link to my website? Thank you, Mindy. 

[Candlestore]

@Mindy123 ;

I have not paid to have a Square website they do offer a Free one which is something like Square. *business name*.sites.  I use this for my Candle Making Class, so people can schedule a class.  I also have a Website out of Square but to keep inventory straight there I use excel and Power Query after 6pm my time.  Then I get an real count of items I sold in store, and any online sale.  Import the new Quantity to my online site.  This is all free as Square does my inside sales, then My Excel software is free with my cell service.  So I just pay for my online site out of Square.  If you want this automatically updated to your Online store out of Square you may have to pay for the Integration between your webstore and Square, which is based on the 3rd party you use.  Some charge a Flat monthly fee, others charge per line of data again this is based on 3rd party integrations between your website provider and Square.  

I am not understanding how you are creating a lin between the sites.?  You can create a free web Page in Square, then use your Paid site to link to your free Square site which can manage your inventory for you.

You can do this all free as I described using Excel and Power Query and spreed sheets.

You can PAY for Integrations that someone else developed and you pay them but that is a 3rd party.