Can I create a shipping label without an order?

[CreatedbyPam]

I need to ship an item from my online store as a 'sample'.  How can I create a shipping label if there is no 'online order'?

[_Violet]

Hi @myrickpottery- Thanks for reaching out to us here on the Square Seller Community to share your suggestion 💡

I’ve shared your feature request with our Product Team, as they are constantly improving our products based on feedback like this. To learn more about how feature requests work, please see this post from one of our Seller Community Moderators.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for any updates, here, in our Seller Community. We appreciate your input! 🙂

[customcraftslex]

THANK YOU so much for this! Omg!! I have been clicking through every single tab on Square to see if there is/was a way to work around this exact issue! I sent an invoice to one of my older clients and now I'm sitting here like, how do I create a label without having to go to USPS and wait in lineeee. I appreciate this so soo soo much. You have no idea.

Thanks again,

Lex

@customcraftsbylex IG & Tik Tok

[FarmerClaire]

That was an awesome workaround you figured out. It is a pain, but at least it can be done. I just added subscriptions as an option to have repeat business, but it doesn't seem to generate an order, so couldn't ship. Have you figured out a way with the subscription feature to have it make an order?

[MadeTangible]

How is this still not a base function in Square? Definitely NOT renewing my account. Even free platforms have manual order entry available. Why would I pay for a service that doesn't even do SUPER BASIC things?

[Jewel_Chasm]

I've been using Square for about 6 months now.  I really can not believe how unresponsive they are to our wants and needs.  I've had many interactions with Square about what are really very basic features that they should offer but this shipping label thing really takes the cake.  I mean we are all using square because we run a business.  I can think of oh, maybe a million reasons (literally) why as someone running a business it is absolutely necessary to print a shipping label for something that I don't have an order for.  Today in my particular case I need to return defective products to a supplier.  I came to Square thinking it would take a little research to figure it out but not just plain it can't be done.  Looking at the date of the first posts, this has been an oversight for two years now.  C'mon Square we deserve much better from you on this issue and a whole bunch of other ones.  We get absolutely nothing based on my 6 months of experience.

[customcraftslex]

Wowwww!!! I just really started using Square and stumbled across this post and now I'm hesitant to continue using them! Ugh i was just saying how easy they are to use. I take it back! This shipping label issue definitely takes the cake girl! It makes no sense as to why we can't have this feature!! I have been trying to see if there was a work around, there is NOT! Square do better!!! I need to print a shipping label so i can send one of my elderly clients the items she already paid for! I sent her an invoice through the square app and now I have to go to the post office to do a task that I can do from home! Square fix this!

[BernadetteA]

Thanks for sharing your feedback, @customcraftslex 

I know the teams are working on some new features for order management, and I will try to find out if creating a manual shipping option is in the works. 

Square partners with Shippo for creating labels through Square Online (ecommerce website). There is also an available Shippo app in Square Marketplace that you can utilize to manually create shipping labels through the Shippo dashboard.

Another suggestion is to use Square Online Checkout Links instead of Invoices for future one-off sales that would need to ship. You would be able to create a shipping label from your Square dashboard for these order types. 

Please let us know if you have any questions about this, and I'll be sure to return to this thread if I hear of any updates to shipping options through the Square dashboard.

p.s. Welcome to the Seller Community 

[Jewel_Chasm]

Frankly I’ve heard the same BS reply from someone at Square so many times that it makes me ill. “The teams are working on it”. Does Square really have any team?  Do they EVER do anything other than say they are working on it? In what is coming up on a year, I’ve NEVER seen square do ANYTHING about any of my requests. Clearly they is a group of us that are probably too small for the “teams” to give a damed about. We might get bigger if you helped us. Some of us will get bigger despite no help from Square. And we will remember all the help we didn’t get and go elsewhere . 

[BernadetteA]

I appreciate your candid feedback, @Jewel_Chasm 

The current shipping label integration we have is intended for sellers to be able to create shipping labels for orders they process through their stores or through Square Online. I'm sure there will be a day where shipping labels are opened up for other aspects of business - like returning an item to a vendor as you mentioned in a previous comment. For now, if you need to create a shipping label for this exact scenario, I recommend going straight to the Shippo dashboard, or your preferred online shipping service website.

You can find updates on features and changes we release about products here. I promise we are constantly and consistently releasing changes and updates to the entire Square ecosystem, although I know it can seem like nothing is changing when your own particular request does not get actioned. 😕 

We receive 100s of feature requests which are prioritized based on a number of conditions. i.e. number of sellers affected, time and cost for developers to rewrite code, how a change will affect other core structures, and so on. It's, unfortunately, not always as simple as just adding something in. 

⚠️ If you, or others on this thread, would like to be more involved with new updates coming to Square, I recommend checking out the Beta section of Seller Community. You can request to test out feature updates as they are being built, and puts you in an excellent position to voice what works, what doesn't, and what is still missing. 

As I mentioned previously, I will make a point to come back to this thread as soon as I have more updates on the next order management/shipping feature release. You can also check out the Ideate boards which is the new home for feature requests and updates.