Square for Retail Review

Square for Retail is a retail point of sale (POS) system that provides features that small and expanding retail businesses need, including inventory management, eCommerce tools, and reporting capabilities. Here's what you can expect from Square for Retail.

Square for Retail is a POS system for retail business owners. It helps businesses accept payments, track and manage inventory, and run eCommerce stores.

Square for Retail has helpful features that can help boost productivity (and increase profit) including inventory management, reporting, and POS tools.

Dashboard

Square for Retail's Dashboard is where you can see a snapshot of all of your retail business information in one place.

The dashboard makes it easy to manage inventory, access reports and transaction information, connect sales channels, and more. It includes a step-by-step setup guide, a features tour, and tutorial videos to shorten the learning curve.

Inventory

Square for Retail's inventory feature allows you to receive, manage, and track inventory directly from your phone or desktop. Perhaps the utmost time-saver is the barcode scanning capabilities that enable you to quickly scan items to process incoming inventory as well as checkout orders. Square enables you to not just scan barcodes but also print and manage the barcode labels you're using to stay organized.

Automatically add items

Square for Retail enables you to automatically add unlimited items to your catalog by searching for or scanning a barcode. You can also bulk import your entire catalog.

Square Photo Studio

The free Photo Studio by Square app helps you take high-quality product photos. The app allows you to easily remove the background from photos and customize preset background styles.

The app also integrates with Instagram, so you can quickly import and edit your Instagram photos.

You can use your photos to sell products directly from the app by adding a payment link to the item in your online store, or you can add the photos to your Square item catalog.

The app is user-friendly; remove the background, add a photo to Square, or start selling with the click of a button.

Note that the Square Photo Studio is currently only available for iOS users.

Low stock alerts

You can enable alerts so that Square for Retail will warn you when stock is getting low. Stock can be synced across locations so that businesses with multiple locations know when it's time to reorder.

Inventory counting tool

Gone are the days of having to physically count inventory to reconcile discrepancies. With Square for Retail's inventory counting tool, you can conduct inventory counts with your iPhone or iPad's camera or a compatible barcode scanner.

You can also set cycle counts (regular audits of a portion of your stock) to catch discrepancies. Square recommends running cycle counts once every 90 days for each item type.

Once you have conducted a full or cycle count, you can view your Inventory Variance Report, which shows actual vs. expected stock amounts.

The inventory counting tool is only available for iOS users on Plus and Premium plans and does not work with Square Stands or Terminals.

Barcode label printing

Square for Retail makes it easy to print barcode labels from your Dashboard or the Square Retail POS app. You can automatically generate SKU numbers (stock keeping units) if your items don't have them, and Square will alert you to missing information (such as price or SKU number) before printing the label.

Barcode label printing is only available on Plus and Premium plans, and the app can only be accessed from iOS devices or the Square Stand or Square Register.

Online sales

Square for Retail connects with Square Online, Square's online store builder. Users can build an eCommerce store and start selling for free, or sign up for one of Square Online's paid plans for advanced features like custom domains, abandoned cart reminders, and the ability to accept payments via PayPal.

eCommerce website creation

Square for Retail includes access to Square Online's website editor. With the editor, you can quickly create a customized online store to sell your products.

To get started with your eCommerce store, click the Online tab in the Dashboard, then click the Start your site button.

The online store builder is simple to use, and you can start selling as soon as your store is published. With the site preview function you can see what your site will look like from a mobile device.

Read more: The Top 10 E-Commerce Solutions for Small Businesses

Shipping discounts

One big perk for Square for Retail users is discounted UPS and USPS shipping. All plans offer discounts of up to 55% for shipping in the US.

Multiple sales channels

Square for Retail connects with multiple sales channels, including:

• Meta for Business. Set up advertisements to market and sell on Instagram and Facebook
• Google product listings. Turn on Google product listings to expand your reach and show up in Google Search and Google Shopping results
• Food delivery. Connect with food delivery services like Doordash to fulfill online orders.
• Appointments. Enable customers to set reservations via Google or book appointments with you on Instagram.

In-store sales

Square for Retail is built to process in-store sales. Item lookup, barcode scanning, and payment processing are foundations of Square's in-store sales capabilities. Your purchase orders and inventory updates will be reflected in your system so you can maximize sales by always knowing what's on your shelves and in your warehouse.

Square payment tools manage exchanges and accept returns in an easy-to-use process. You can also automatically get a dashboard of details and notes to reference for any past customers. This makes it easier to build lasting relationships with customers by bringing up previous purchases, preferences, and other key customer details whenever they visit your store.

Transactions

Integrated payments

The more ways customers can pay, the better. With Square for Retail, customers can pay in person by tapping or swiping their cards, or via a chip reader. If you don't have hardware, customers with iPhones can use Apple's contactless payment option.

Invoices

Square for Retail's invoicing feature allows you to send invoices via email or text message, schedule up to four payment reminders, and attach up to 10 files of up to 25 MB.

Users can pay via:

• Credit or debit card
• ACH bank transfer
• Cash app pay
• Gift card

Square's payment processing capabilities include credit and debit cards, near field communications (NFC) payments like Apple Pay and Google Wallet, gift cards, and more. And Square's payment security standards comply with all PCI requirements so your customers' valuable information is fully encrypted on Square's servers. Square also enables you to process and track invoices.

You can turn on tipping or allow customers to save their payment info for future purchases.

Square invoices are free to send, but transaction fees apply.

If you save yourself as a contact, you can create and view a preview of your invoice before you send it to a customer.

Square Virtual Terminal

While invoices are a good choice when you want to bill via email or for recurring payments, Square's Virtual Terminal enables you to instantly charge customers for phone or email orders.

The Virtual Terminal allows you to add tips, split payments, and add service charges.

You can accept payments using the Virtual Terminal by:

• Manually entering card information
• Swiping a card on an Apple or Chromebook computer using the Square Reader for magstripe
• Use Square Charge for Desktop on Mac computers

There are higher processing fees for manually entered transactions.

Reporting

Square for Retail's reports help you gain insight into your company's performance so you can make profitable decisions.

Sales reports

Sales reports give you an overview of your sales trends. You can choose daily, weekly, or yearly sales statistics, and compare sales over custom time periods. Metrics include gross sales, net sales, and average total sales, and you can view data on either a bar or line graph.

COGS report

The COGS report shows the total cost that your business has paid for a product. The report can include expenses such as taxes, shipping, and handling so you can get an idea of the true cost of each item.

The COGS report can show:

• Cost of goods sold
• Total revenue
• Profit
• Profit margin
• Sales
• Restocks
• Re-counts
• Losses
• Damages
• Theft

COGS reports are only available for users on the Plus and Premium plans.

Related: Top Tax Software for Small Businesses

Vendor sales

The vendor sales report enables you to choose a date range and filter items sold within that period based on vendors. This report makes it easy to evaluate vendors' performance.

Vendor sales reports are included in the Plus and Premium plans.

Inventory sell-through

The inventory sell-through report is a daily report that shows a comparison of the percentage of inventory you get from a vendor and the amount you've sold over a specific time frame. Your inventory turnover ratio can tell you each product's performance so you can decide whether to continue to stock and sell that item.

Items with a lower turnover ratio may need your attention. If you have an item with a sell-through rate that is over 100%, that means you have oversold your stock and your inventory is negative.

The inventory sell-through report is only available with the Plus and Premium plans.

Customer relationship management

Square for Retail's customer relationship management features enable you to collect customer information and provide customized marketing services based on their behavior.

Create customer profiles

With customer profiles, you can get customers' email addresses when they ask for a digital receipt, store payment methods, and create customer groups based on their activities.

Marketing services

Square offers the following marketing services as add-ons:

• Square SMS marketing. Square will send automatic text messages to engage your audience (including promotions and discounts) and solicit Google Reviews.
• Square loyalty program. This service enrolls customers into a loyalty program straight from your POS, Square Online, or an invoice. You can choose what to offer customers points for (such as visits, money spent, or types of items purchased), run promotions, and automatically send rewards.
• Unlimited custom permission sets. Permission sets enable your employees to take certain actions in Square for Retail, such as taking payments, canceling transactions, and reopening closed checks.

Staff management

Square for Retail's staff management features include time tracking and scheduling capabilities via Square Shifts.

Square Shifts offers:

• Shift management (including time off requests and shift swapping)
• Time and attendance tracking
• Labor-cost and labor-versus-sales reports
• Timecards synced with Square Payroll

Square Shifts is limited to five team members for Free plan users.

Read more: Top Payroll Software for Small Businesses