Couldn't be more satisfied!

[Elleraeboutique]

I own two businesses, a hair salon and now a clothing boutique. I have been through so many credit card companys and I absolutely have loved square from day one. I love how much they care to improve and help make our lives easier! Highly recommend square to any and every business owner!!

[George]

Thank you so much for all the great feedback! We love you back.

[blendbysamrae]

Hi! I am looking to do have the same businesses do you use square for your inventory and online sales as well? I have been with square for 7 years now and I am looking to add a boutique to my salon business, I don't know where to start for barcoding/ inventory/ online sales!

[Candlestore]

@blendbysamrae ;

Do you make your own products that you would need to make a Barcode, or do you just sell items that have a barcode on them? 

So lets start- Which Square product are you or will you be using?

Square POS, Square for Retail (Free) or Square for Retail (Paid)?

Comparison of these :  5980-compare-square-for-retail-and-square-point-of-sale 

Depending on which version of Square you are using you might be able to have Square make your own barcodes.  If your products you are selling already have a Barcode you can use that Barcode.  The barcode would be entered as either a SKU or GTIN in Square.  GTIN is a specially formatted length of barcode that has standards and if you have to make your own I would stay away from trying to make one for a GTIN.   Now a SKU is a lot more forgiving, as it can be numbers and text.  With Square I think you can have up to 40 Characters in a SKU. I limit mine to 30 because of my accounting software QuickBooks Desktop limits SKU to 30 characters.  If you pay for Square for Retail, Square can make an SKU for you, or you can use a preprinted Barcode from your purchased items as the SKU.  Sometime when I buy a New item and Scan it, Square asks if this is a New GTIN and sometimes it asks if it is a new SKU, either way when you sell the item and the Scanner reads the Barcode it adds the item to the sale if you have the item setup in inventory.   In my retail store I have a mix of items that have barcodes on them and ones I make.  Most of the preprinted barcodes are anywhere from 11 to 13 characters I believe and are only numbers.  Square can make SKU's for you which are a mix of letters and numbers.  I have not tried using Square to make any for me yet since I started making my own before that feature was available. 

What type of Barcode reader are you going to use?  1D or 2D  

The advantage of 2D is that Square has some abilities for using 2D barcodes for customers use.  Self Checkout comes to mind for Retail in the future possibly like Square has for Resturants.

The big difference is what type of barcode your going to use.

 1D barcodes get longer the more characters you add and then require different size labels unless all your barcodes use the same amount of characters.  I use 2D barcodes and Scanners so my Barcodes are all close to the same size.

Here is more about Barcodes :  Barcode Guide 

Online sales I can not help much with how Square works since I use a different web host.

But did find out that again like Square having 40 Characters and QuickBooks allowing 30, make sure your Barcode Characters length is in the parameters of your web site provider.  Also make sure that the SKU in all 3 are the same to make sure they can play nice with each other. 

I know this is a lot of information and may be too complex and can be done nice and easy by letting Square create some Barcodes in your SKU field and then just transfer that SKU to your other sales and tax channels.  

If you have or come up with specific questions ask away.

Keith