Checkout Options with Square Online
The checkout experience on your Square Online site includes several adjustable options to enhance shopping and online ordering for your customers. To set up these checkout options, go to your Square Online Overview page and select Settings > Checkout or Shared Settings > Checkout.
Note: The checkout page style, including background colours, font colours and button shapes and colours, will match your Square Online site design and can’t be customized separately. Learn more about choosing styles for your Square Online site.
Accept Online Orders
You can toggle online ordering on or off. When toggled off, items will still be on your site but not available for purchase.
Collect Payments
Collect payments online by connecting a payment processor of your choice to your website. Learn more about accepting payments on Square Online for more information on all of your online payment options.
Group Ordering
Note: Enable group ordering by upgrading your Square Online subscription.
A group order allows multiple people to add their individual items to a collective order at the same time, where each participant can use their own device to add to the cart. This works well for families and groups of friends placing an order together, or a team of employees ordering lunch for an office gathering.
With group ordering, the owner of the cart can turn on a group ordering option on your site that will populate a link they can share with anyone they want to join the cart. Additional guests who use the link will go directly to your site to start adding their own items to the collective order. Once the cart is complete, the cart owner will submit the order and pay. The additional guests can also opt to leave the cart and start their own order instead.
Note: At this time, group ordering is only available for pickup, local delivery and closed tabs for QR code ordering (i.e. not open tabs).
Tipping
Configure tipping for pickup, local delivery and QR code orders.
When enabling tips, start by toggling on Collect tips and choosing either Smart tips or Percentage tips only.
- The Smart tips option shows percentages or whole amounts depending on the final amount of the order. Orders under $10 enable tipping in whole amounts and orders over $10 enable tipping in percentages.
- The Percentage tips only option shows tipping in percentages for all orders regardless of the final amount.
Whether you enable Smart tips or Percentage tips only, you can set three percentages as default tip options during checkout. From the drop-down menu, you can then choose an optional default tip percentage to have preselected during checkout from the three percentages you entered previously. Customers can always change or remove the amount at checkout.
If you’ve enabled Smart tips, you can also choose a default whole amount as a tip.
Toggle on Set a different default tip when a tab is left open and enter a percentage to automatically add a tip to tabs left open.
Note: This option is for QR code orders using open tabs only.
For local delivery orders, tipping will only apply to orders fulfilled with In-House Delivery. Tipping on orders fulfilled with On-Demand Delivery is always allowed and the default tip amount is defined by the On-Demand Delivery service provider. Customers can always change the amount at checkout.
You can also enable tipping options from Square POS for your in-person operations. Learn more about tipping within Square Point of Sale.
Customer Inputs
Customize the information your customers give you at checkout by selecting Edit customer inputs.
Add more fields in your checkout flow with the following options:
- Allow customer to leave a note to seller: Display a text box for customers to leave you a note during checkout. These are helpful for giving you specific details about their orders (e.g. leaving a special note on a shipped order, leaving out a specific ingredient on a food order, etc.).
- Allow customers to opt-in to receiving marketing emails from you: Your customers can opt in to marketing updates during checkout. Customers who opt in are automatically included in your marketing campaigns. Learn more about getting started with Square Marketing.
Check the Non-physical items option to collect a recipient’s address for orders that have digital, donation, membership, event or service items. The recipient address is automatically collected where necessary for tax, and for all shipping and local delivery orders.
Check applicable options out of Local delivery, QR code ordering, Pickup and Shipping orders. You can also collect buyer addresses for orders that have Non-physical items.
Note: The buyer address is always collected for gifts. Learn more about setting up gifting options with Square Online.
Store Policies
Create shipping and return policies to set clear expectations for your customers. Customers will see this information during the checkout process. Select Edit store policies to set up or edit your shipping and return policies.
A clear shipping policy should answer the following questions:
- Which shipping carriers and services do you offer?
- How long is the handling time between placing and shipping an order?
- Do orders need to be placed before a specific time?
- Is there anywhere you don’t deliver to (e.g. P.O. boxes, or specific regions or countries)?
A clear return policy should answer the following questions:
- How long does a customer have to return an item?
- What is the procedure for a return or exchange?
- How long will the process take?
- Who pays to return items back to you?
- Are there any items that are not returnable (e.g. sale items, or items that have been opened or used)?
- Do you offer full refunds, exchanges or store credit?
Advanced Settings
Change the checkout mode and enable or disable other advanced options. Select Edit advanced settings to make changes.
Switch between Add to cart or Buy now.
- Add to cart is the default setting, and allows customers to place any number of items into the shopping cart before checking out.
- Buy now allows customers to skip the cart and go straight to checkout with a single item. Note: This option can’t be used with in-store pickup.
Customer Experience
Customers will be able to check out from your website using any enabled checkout options outlined above.
The order confirmation page your customers see after they check out will display their order details and provide insight into the status of their order. They will also see details relevant to their order type (e.g. shipping, pickup, etc.) and item type (e.g. physical, food and beverage, service, digital, etc.).
Troubleshooting
If you’re seeing a 404 or “Published site not found” error on your live Square Online site’s checkout page, resolve it by republishing your site from the Square Dashboard. Once republished, verify you no longer see the error by refreshing your live site and trying the checkout process once again.