Product Updates: Loyalty, Gift Cards, and Birthday Rewards

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This week’s release covers updates to loyalty, gift cards, delivery thresholds, checkout, menu navigation, and order handling. The focus is on improving consistency across ordering, adding more control in the dashboard, and reducing friction in the customer experience.

Loyalty improvements across app, web, and dashboard

The loyalty system has been updated across the full stack to improve how points and rewards are calculated, displayed, and applied.

The logic behind loyalty queries now runs more efficiently, which improves how quickly points update and how accurately rewards apply during checkout. The UI for points and rewards has also been refined to make balances and redemptions easier to understand for customers.

These changes create a more consistent experience between app and web ordering, especially for repeat customers actively using rewards.

Discounted gift cards with custom amounts

Support for discounted gift cards is now available across the dashboard, app, and web ordering.

Merchants can configure custom gift card offers with flexible pricing, allowing promotions such as offering higher stored value at a lower purchase price. These offers appear directly within the ordering experience without requiring additional setup outside the dashboard.

This expands how gift cards can be used, both as a revenue tool and as part of promotional campaigns.

Configurable birthday reward redemption window

Birthday rewards now support a configurable redemption period.

Merchants can define the number of days customers have to redeem their birthday offer. This setting is managed directly in the dashboard and applies consistently across app and web ordering.

Additional updates ensure that customers receive clearer messaging around redemption timelines, reducing confusion during use.

Category menus and navigation enhancements

Menu category handling has been expanded and refined across the platform.

Support for Square category menus now includes improved syncing and compatibility with more complex menu structures, including combo items. Category navigation has also been updated to allow smoother scrolling, more reliable linking, and better visibility control across posts, notifications, and banners.

These changes improve how customers browse menus, particularly for larger or more structured catalogs.

Catering and delivery flow improvements

Updates have been made to how catering and delivery orders are handled across ordering flows.

Delivery fee calculations now behave more consistently across scenarios, and store credit usage during delivery orders has been aligned with expected behavior. Catering and regular orders are also handled more clearly within the ordering flow, reducing ambiguity in order type selection.

Additional support has been added for franchise level delivery configurations, allowing more flexibility in how delivery is managed across locations.

AI support assistant (Olivia)

An updated version of the AI support assistant has been introduced.

This includes structured response handling, improved awareness of store time zones, and expanded backend support actions. The assistant integrates more closely with internal systems to provide more relevant responses and better routing of support requests.

The rollout is ongoing and will continue to expand in capability.

Checkout and payment flow updates

The checkout experience has been refactored to improve reliability and clarity.

Coupon application now follows a more consistent flow, and discount handling during checkout has been standardized. Payment interactions have been streamlined, and the post checkout experience now redirects users more cleanly back into the app.

These updates reduce friction between cart and order confirmation and improve consistency across ordering sessions.

Location and store management updates

Location handling has been improved across the dashboard and ordering systems.

The location picker now supports more predictable behavior, and active locations can be filtered more easily when managing multiple stores. Updates to store level configuration ensure that changes apply more consistently across systems.

There is also improved support for syncing business names and managing delivery areas through updated polygon handling.

Rewards and coupon handling updates

Rewards and coupon logic has been expanded to support more flexible use cases.

Rewards can now apply across multiple categories more consistently, and gift card redemption checks have been improved for existing orders. Coupon handling during checkout has also been refined to ensure more predictable application.

These changes support more complex promotional setups without introducing inconsistencies during checkout.

UX and mobile experience improvements

Several updates improve usability across app and web ordering.

Login flows now support automatic verification in email based authentication, and phone validation has been improved. Order status cards now include clearer timing information, and cart rendering has been simplified for faster performance.

Additional updates include improved address handling, more consistent event tracking, and faster client side product search.

Prep time and time slot handling

Updates to prep time logic improve how time slots are calculated and applied.

Handling of day based logic has been aligned with standard conventions, and scheduling behavior has been made more consistent across ordering scenarios.

Dashboard experience updates

The dashboard includes several usability improvements.

Pagination behavior has been corrected for smoother navigation, and analytics now default to the current month for better visibility. Additional updates improve order metrics clarity, download interactions, and overall responsiveness across dashboard views.

Order confirmation updates

Order confirmation emails now include the last four digits of the payment method used.

This provides additional clarity for customers when reviewing their orders.

System and observability updates

Logging and observability have been standardized across services.

Log levels have been aligned to reduce noise while maintaining visibility into important events. Error handling has also been improved to provide clearer diagnostics across ordering and dashboard systems.

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