Lightspeed Retail vs. SWIMS

It is perfect for any small business looking for inventory control, Tracking purchase history, and just an all round easy to use software for retail and beyond. I would not use it if I have only a few hundred items or was a larger company that can afford to build my own POS software.

Incentivized

• Lightspeed Retail has great reports that are very easy to read and understand.
• Lightspeed Retail is great to train new employees on because of its ease of use. There are not lots of different things that you have to learn just basics.

Incentivized

• With a larger SKU assortment size, the software really starts to struggle with doing physical inventory after scanning in a few hundred items.
• Several times throughout each year Lightspeed went down on us (not our internet connection but actually Lightspeed verified).
• Special order system could use a lot of modern improvements (ability to schedule ahead of time, etc.)
• Reports are very basic, and will likely require there Lightspeed Analytics to actually get reports useful for day to day operations.
• Weak system for receiving purchase orders.
• Does not handle items and cases for reordering very well. Have used multiple Point of Sale systems in the past 10 years that allow to set reorder points based on single items, but reorder the case automatically, Lightspeed has no support for this.

Incentivized

Simply well designed with obvious icons per component, making it easy to interface with.

Incentivized

I gave the rating of a 9 because ninety percent of the time when I talk to their support they're very helpful. One of the only real issues I have is there are times where the queue will be 7-9 people deep. When you have an error you don't know how to fix, sometimes this is very troubling. But overall their support is usually quick and friendly.

Incentivized

Lightspeed is faster, sleeker and more modern than our previous POS system. I can’t express enough how easy the online store portion of Lightspeed is - it just intuitive and sometimes, is TOO easy, I feel like I have to be forgetting something. Lightspeed is staying modern and current where our previous POS was not

Incentivized

• Certainly has saved money on cash-outs/ accounting due to QuickBooks integration.
• Faster processing through tills means happier customers and more sales per hour.
• Expensive product at $5K a year has taken away some profitability for this small business. It's way, way over priced.