Setting A Cumulative Pre-Order Limit...Help!

[RuckusDonuts]

Hi! We're in the process of adding pre-orders to our Square webpage. There is one issue that is preventing us from going live (and as a result generating a LOT more sales, which means Square makes more as well 😉 :

We need to cap/limit the total amount of pre-orders for a given day based on the cumulative/total number of donuts pre-ordered. You see, every single donut starts the same as a just fried, plain donut. We then finish the donut to make it a glazed, chocolate with sprinkles, etc. So we can't say we have X Glazed donuts available and Y Chocolate Sprinkle each day. We need Square to take the 6 donuts from Jimmy's order, the 4 donuts from Tom's, the dozen the gift shop wanted and the 2 for Jake and understand we've pre-sold 24 donuts for Thursday, regardless of what donuts they all wanted/didn't want, and then stop accepting pre-orders for that particular day based on a number we've pre-determined.

Is this possible, or do I need to contact a third party to make this happen? Thanks!

Todd

CFO (Chief Frying Officer)

Ruckus Donuts

[JJ_]

Hey there @RukusDonuts 👋

Thanks for providing such a great example of what you are needing. However at this time Square's Inventory will only reduce items by the amount of times it is sold. So if the order is for one dozen of donuts the item will only be reduced 1 instead of 12 times. I hope this information is helpful!  

Also let me know if I misunderstood your need....

[RuckusDonuts]

Hi JJ,

First, thank you for the reply! I think you did misunderstand. We have each donut listed individually, from which a customer can choose which donut(s) and how many of each they want. So Customer X may want 1 Classic, 2 Boston Creme, 1 Apple Fritter & 1 Maple Creme for a total of 5 donuts. I need Square to be able to take the 5 total donuts from that order and repeat this process for every order until the total donuts (not orders) reaches a preset amount, at which time preorders are no longer available for that day. As mentioned originally we can’t set a certain number of each donut variety per day in that every donut is the same to me until it’s finished. Hope that helps.

Todd

[JJ_]

Thanks for explaining that again @RuckusDonuts

To be clear on this at this time Pre-Ordering on Square Online is a feature request how ever I am trying to understand your need to be able to offer you a  a workaround as Online Store needs to have an inventory count to be able to complete checkout.  

I am investigating on how we could make this work for you.

[RuckusDonuts]

Hi JJ,

Thank you SO much! This is literally the last piece of our online Square store puzzle. It would really allow us to be able to grow sales at a very sustainable (and controllable) pace that dovetails with the day of the week, month of the year, our own internal abilities, etc.

Thanks again for your help!

Todd

[JJ_]

At this time all the information I could find is that this would have to be done manually by turning off the option to accept online orders whenever you reach the capacity that you are aiming. Meaning that you would create items in large amounts so that buyers can buy them and then you will stop sales once the capacity is reached.