BigCommerce is a SaaS platform that allows SMBs to develop eCommerce sites. Features include the capabilities to design the storefront, configure products, manage payments, generate traffic, and optimize conversion.
$39
per month
Lightspeed Restaurant
Score 9.9 out of 10
N/A
The Lightspeed Restaurant POS, from Lightspeed in Montreal, is a restaurant POS and management system designed to enable users to sync the user's menu with major food delivery apps, manage all orders and and reach new customers.
BigCommerce is really well suited for someone who wants to get selling quickly, but may not have endless developer experience, or even web design experience for that matter. Their templates, even the free ones, are very attractive and supported by tons of third party apps. I think the only times it is not a slam dunk recommendation would be if someone is dead set on using another solution like Shopify, or if they are not looking for an ecommerce site and more of a flat website, this would be overkill.
One thing Upserve [POS (formerly Breadcrumb)] does well is splitting customer checks is very easy and intuitive. We used to host a lot of groups (pre pandemic) and splitting checks can be a nightmare. But they let you split it evenly by number or by item. You can even split one item (say, an app) across multiple checks.
Reporting: Upserve's backend reporting system is unparalleled in this industry. It's extremely robust and gives us eyes into every nook and cranny of our business.
Intuitive: The Upserve POS is nearly as intuitive as Square. The ease of use really helps us provide great service without spending a fortune in training.
Extras: A quality POS system is assumed with Upserve. It has all the bells and whistles and it's very effective. What takes Upserve over the top is all the added features. Our online ordering system, loyalty program, delivery platform integration, KDS system, and soon to be inventory management are all provided for free with our system. The other benefit is all these features are seamless and work really well.
In my experience, customer support FAILS terribly in knowledge of getting a BC site live
In my experience, the back side/ dashboard is very archaic compared to Volusion, will add hours of work to your week.
In my experience, pretty much anything you NEED is done with an "app" at additional cost. I think we have a few hundred dollars in apps already on top of cost of BigCommerce.
I feel coming from Volusion to BigCommerce was so depressing but we do feel secure that the company will remain in business. We are looking for something else already.
On the KDS, the system will re-fire tickets when we split checks and sometimes when simply closing out.
On the KDS, when someone adds onto an order that has already been bumped from the screen and doesn't put the new item at the end of the queue. It bumps it to the front and keeps the original time of the original order. This makes it difficult to process the order and determine the priority of which order should be fulfilled.
I personally would not even consider another e-commerce website platform.
Bigcommerce may have the same (or close to the same) functionality and integrations as other SaaS platforms but they excel at customer service and tech support. At the end of the day you need a company that will answer the phone in less than a minute especially if you're having a 5 alarm issue. That said, we hardly ever have any issues. The site was down for a few minutes one time 5 years ago. Sometimes we have issues with coding or apps and they help me with that too. They even walked me through installing our new theme when the contracted developers told me that wasn't included in the development of our new website.
Bigcommerce comes out with new innovations every year, not including apps that other people write for the platform, and there are a lot of those and new ones all the time. And there are a LOT of awesome themes to choose from (Halothemes are the best).
And the price is reasonable!
I'd give Bigcommerce my business any time and recommend them to anyone looking to run an e-commerce website. You could even use them for a non-shopping site, we have one of those too!
I think that overall it has a great front end for the customer. On the back end, it takes a little spin-up time, but in just a couple of hours you can really have your head wrapped around everything you're going to need 99% of the time. It takes me about 5 minutes to train a new user on how to interact with customer orders.
Upserve is very intuitive. It utilizes a tab system along the left side of the screen for easy access to menu categories. After choosing the tab you want to view (i.e. Food), all the food items and/or sub categories show up instantly on the screen. once your items are chosen, you are a card swipe away from starting the payment process. Very easy. That said, there are a few minor issues with usability. For example, splitting checks is really quite difficult. You have to create new checks one at a time, then have to go searching for the checks to ring guests up. Really not intuitive on this front. Thankfully, it's not incredibly inhibitive
So far in my time with BigCommerce I have not had any down time when it comes to my webstore or accessing it at any time I need to. Knowing that they have such a good uptime, it makes me feel comfortable that my customers can access things anytime, but also keep sales going 24/7
I have not had any issues with pages loading slow or any real other issues, not that I have encountered so far. Speed of the site and images loading are fantastic and everything just seems to work nicely, which may seem like a simple thing to say about things, but when something just WORKS! Its rather nice vs fighting with things to work right.
Because they are always there no matter how simple or complex the question is, if they don't know the answer they don't fake it and just make you go away feeling frustrated.. they get you to someone that does know the answer. I always appreciate their help and their honesty!
Seriously, if I could give a 12 rating I would. Upserve support is 24/7 and completely free. No extra fees on evenings or weekends and they are fast. You can actually start a chat support straight from your ipad screen. 90% of our support issues have been solved in just a few minutes from the chat screen. That said, I prefer the phone. Calling into Upserve support is just as easy and everyone is always friendly and fast
They have a comprehensive online help file system that makes it easy to do almost anything. They cover just about everything you'd want to do with your online store with images, clear descriptions and in some cases video. I will, however, say the videos should be a little more professorially done and not sound like the employees are doing it in their cubical.
A certified BigCommerce design and solution partner will usually comprise a team of highly experienced designers, developers and marketers. It is our view that in the vast majority of cases, this will pay dividends in the long-term - especially for those teams that could use the extra support.
BigCommerce even with add-ons such as a PIM and B2B functionality wins for small businesses on affordability and ease of use. No servers or updates to worry about and no expensive agencies to pay. This being said, if the budget were no issue, for larger organisations Magento is perhaps a better option.
Lavu is the worst POS system I have ever encountered. It was the most frustrating part of everyone’s shift. They were never available for customer service, Upserve is. Their system would shut down across regions, Upserve does not. Upserve (at the time Breadcrumb) was highly rated and praised for simplicity.
I believe after seeing all of the parts of this platform, one is able to develop the business and keep adding on select features for the business. There are multiple options for purchase with the various platforms once the business grows more. The different features being offered by the platform can lead us to scalability.
Provides a robust platform to sell a high-risk product.
Page Builder saves you time and money by negating the need to buy a template.
Includes robust promotion settings that allow for codes and automatic discounts, bulk discounts, and customer groups (i.e. military discount), all native options.
Bestsellers and slower items rise to the top in reporting features, making analysis quicker.
Dramatically reduced server error
Posed a challenge to continue face-to-face contact between servers and cooks; the POS tends to end conversations about special orders, special customer requests or restrictions, and generally conveys the nuances that contribute to excellent service. So we have to make a conscious effort to continue talking to each other.
