Taking Pre-Orders, Issue Barcode Receipt, Redeem a...

indyfestival · ‎03-31-2018

Will be rolling out Square at 9 food & beverage serving locations on campus at our annual church festival this July.

Considering option to to allow customers to use our new eCommerce site (WooCommerce, perhaps?) to pre-order custom meals at a discount, then bring receipt to a specific Carry-Out dining location during the 3-day event and redeem their meal.

We offer a wide variety of food items, so rather than a generic "meal deal" I was hoping to allow them to build an order on the site (i.e. 2 fish sandwiches, 1 mac-n-cheese, 1 bottled beverage, and 1 piece of cake), with their receipt including perhaps a bar code the cashier can scan at the specific pickup POS. Need to be able to ensure 1-time use, so they can't just print a receipt 5 times and re-use. Need specific identifiers.

If this is too complicated, or impossible, I may just sell "meal deals" in advance (i.e. 1 entree, 1 side, 1 beverage, 1 dessert). But we want to track sales of specific items to use the data for future analysis.

Thoughts? Tips? Am I crazy?

EJ_ · ‎04-03-2018

Hi @indyfestival

Welcome to the Seller Community!

In regards to your pre-orders through an eCommerce site, you'll need to work with whomever you choose to see if it's possilbe to have order tickets go through to your Point of Sale with a Square Integration. I know WooCommerce has an entire team that's dedicated to this, as they developed and support the Square integration on their end specifically.

From a few events that I've seen personally, the second option of selling "Meal Deals" is a very common workaround for vendors on-site at large scale festivals. It would be tough on inventory, but there are a few workarounds that might help with that as well.

I recall one seller using a "Pre-Paid" 100% discount whenever a voucher or receipt was presented. They'd then add the items of their meal to the sale, add the discount, and ring the sale up as "Other Tender" for inventory tracking.

indyfestival · ‎04-03-2018

I will definitely reach out to Woo on the integration. Just getting geared up.

I really like your last paragraph. Don't know why I didn't think of that. Very simple. Tracks items sold and allows $0 tender. Only issue is tracking the use of the vouchers.

Best thing might just be for us to sell preloaded gift cards then just ring up orders normally.

Thanks again!

Taking Pre-Orders, Issue Barcode Receipt, Redeem at Event