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Lightspeed Retail

Lightspeed Retail

Overview

What is Lightspeed Retail?

Lightspeed Retail is a retail PoS system from Lightspeed headquartered in Quebec. Core retail POS features are expanded on higher service tiers with ecommerce option and payments gateway, an accounting system, and a customer loyalty program.

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Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

Lightspeed Retail is a versatile software that caters to a range of industries, including retail, grooming, and lodging. Users appreciate …
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Lightspeed POS

1 out of 10
May 06, 2021
We use Lightspeed retail as our main interface with customer purchases. It is used in all of my locations. It creates more business …
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Lightspeed Retail

10 out of 10
March 29, 2019
Incentivized
We use it as our Point of Sale system, and to keep records. We also use it to reconcile Inventory levels every 6 months. It is only used …
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Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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Basic

$79.00 ($69.00)

Cloud
per month (when billed annually)

Starter

$119.00 ($99.00)

Cloud
per month (when billed annually)

Standard

$139.00 ($119.00)

Cloud
per month (when billed annually)

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.lightspeedhq.com/pos/retail…

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Demos

Textem - Using Text'em within LightSpeed Retail

YouTube

How to text in a Lightspeed Retail Workorder | Lightspeed Essentials

YouTube

LightSpeed Retail Request API Key for Kosmos eSync

YouTube

Lightspeed Retail POS Demo: Getting started

YouTube

How to text in Lightspeed Retail | Lightspeed Essentials

YouTube
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Product Details

What is Lightspeed Retail?

Lightspeed Retail Video

The Lightspeed family of products is about more than just point of sale. Whether you're a retailer, restaurateur or an eCommerce entrepreneur, our solutions will help you business grow. Learn more about how our point of sale and eCommerce systems can help your business at https://www.lightspeedhq.com/pos/retail/

Lightspeed Retail Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android

Frequently Asked Questions

Lightspeed Retail is a retail PoS system from Lightspeed headquartered in Quebec. Core retail POS features are expanded on higher service tiers with ecommerce option and payments gateway, an accounting system, and a customer loyalty program.

Reviewers rate Support Rating highest, with a score of 9.8.

The most common users of Lightspeed Retail are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(31)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Lightspeed Retail is a versatile software that caters to a range of industries, including retail, grooming, and lodging. Users appreciate its ability to handle transactions seamlessly in these various sectors. Additionally, the software offers valuable analytics tools that allow users to track purchase history, enabling them to make informed decisions for future offerings. This feature has proven particularly beneficial for businesses looking to grow and improve their operations. Many users have found the inventory control capabilities of Lightspeed Retail extremely helpful for tasks such as conducting year-end inventory assessments and transferring products between locations. By having a comprehensive understanding of their inventory, businesses can effectively manage their stock levels and optimize the use of resources. The ability to implement Lightspeed Retail across an entire company streamlines processes and facilitates quick issue resolution. Users have found it much easier to resolve any problems or discrepancies as all relevant information is accessible through a centralized system. The reports and analytics provided by Lightspeed Retail are highly valued by users as they offer valuable insights into their businesses. By analyzing sales data, trends, and customer behavior, businesses can make strategic decisions to drive growth and boost profitability. The cloud-based nature of Lightspeed Retail offers greater flexibility and accessibility, allowing users to access the system from anywhere without being tied to a specific location or device.

Lightspeed Retail has proven useful in a variety of settings. For example, in a campus bookstore, the software serves as a simplified and modern point-of-sale system, making transactions smoother for employees. It has also been successfully utilized in brick-and-mortar stores across multiple locations and integrated with other platforms such as loyalty programs, Mailchimp, and Homebase. In the context of retail stores like LIJ retail group or pet supply stores, Lightspeed Retail acts as a reliable source of truth for inventory, orders, and customer information across all channels. This holistic approach ensures accurate inventory management and enhances the overall customer experience. Other notable use cases include bike shops, where Lightspeed Retail has resolved previous business problems and offered the convenience of remote access. Similarly, garden centers and animal shelters have found value in utilizing barcode scanning at registers and better stock management without the need for external inventory companies. While some users have expressed concerns about the auto-add feature affecting inventory accuracy, overall, Lightspeed Retail is widely used and trusted as a reliable point-of-sale system that effectively manages transactions and inventory for brick-and-mortar stores. The software has also made it easier for businesses to integrate with other platforms and streamline operations. The integration with LS Ecom allows users to expand their reach and sell products online, opening up new avenues for revenue generation. This seamless integration ensures that inventory and pricing remain accurate across various channels, including warehouses and online platforms like BigCommerce. Lightspeed Retail has also addressed the need for in-house purchases for customers who prefer not to buy online.

As the main point-of-sale system in a garden center or an animal shelter retail area, Lightspeed Retail enables smooth transactions using barcode scanning at registers. Additionally, it assists with record-keeping and reconciling inventory levels periodically. Customers appreciate the convenience of accessing Lightspeed Retail from anywhere, thanks to its cloud-based nature. Its modern interface has simplified tasks for employees, making their jobs more efficient and enjoyable. Furthermore, the software's analytics capabilities have provided valuable insights to users, allowing them to make data-driven decisions that contribute to their business growth.

While some users have encountered issues with certain features such as the auto-add function affecting inventory accuracy, overall, Lightspeed Retail continues to be a go-to choice for various industries seeking efficiency and growth in their retail operations. As a comprehensive solution for point-of-sale, analytics, and inventory management, it offers reliable support for businesses looking to streamline operations and drive success in their respective sectors.

Based on user reviews, users commonly recommend the following for Lightspeed:

  • Explore additional options to add value: Users suggest exploring additional features, such as Analytics, to enhance the subscription and get the most out of the system.

  • Utilize reporting and setup features: It is recommended to take full advantage of Lightspeed's reporting and setup features in order to optimize data management and analysis.

  • Try out the free trial before purchasing: Many users highly recommend taking advantage of Lightspeed's free trial to experience its versatility and user-friendliness firsthand before making a purchase decision.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-4 of 4)
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Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We were looking for a more simpler and modern POS system to use in our campus bookstore - and Lightspeed has definitely delivered on both of those things. There are less of working in our store than ever before, so we needed something that wasn’t going to make our jobs harder.
  • Streamlined and easy to use
  • Sleek and modern
  • Easy to correspond between in store
  • And online portions of the retail
  • Business
  • Support isn’t always the best
  • We’ve had some history of dips in the system working
  • Communication about updates is lacking
Lightspeed is great for a store that has inventory that is shared between in store and online sales because they are so well connected in the POS system software, whether it is inventory counts, images, etc.

lightspeed is also great if you have items in your store that has variants such as sizes or colors, the system makes it so easy to add these into each individual circumstance.
  • Retail and Ecom interconnectedness
  • Strong online store customization
  • Ease of use at checkout
  • I have to spend a lot less time training my employees because Lightspeed is so easy to use!
  • Keeping track of our inventory is as simple as clicking a few buttons.
  • Our online sales have grown tremendously since changing to Lightspeed
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!
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Lightspeed as our main POS system for our garden centre. We don't do much with the inventory side of things but we do use barcode scanning at the register.
  • Very very user friendly.
  • Easy iPad interface that is easy to upgrade to new hardware if an iPad breaks, etc.
  • On the Advanced plan the reporting is outstanding.
  • Very easy to train new employees, especially younger employees raised on phones and tablets.
  • We use their payments system and it's a very easy integration. I believe Stripe is their payment provider.
  • Incredibly overpriced. We're paying almost $400 a month ($5K a year!!!) for the advanced edition with one extra register. The problem is that you have to have the advanced edition in order to have any proper sales reporting. The entire point of a digital POS is to track sales and specific items etc. You can't do that with lesser editions.
  • Online Help is USELESS. You better hope you're tech savvy and can figure stuff out yourself because they will tell you things like "Did you try clicking this button?" Problems can be very complex and the online help has zero idea how to deal with them excpet in infatile terms that are not helpful.
  • There's constant room for improvements in all sorts of areas and when you point it out, the best you'll ever get is "Ok, we'll send this recommendation off to our development team". And of course nothing ever happens. It feels almost like an abandoned software that just is what it is.
Very small coffee shop-style business would be perfect for this. Medium sized business can get away with it but there's probably better and cheaper options. Larger businesses wouldn't bother with software like this.
  • Ease of use.
  • Cheap hardware.
  • Integration with QuickBooks/ Mailchimp.
  • 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.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Lightspeed Retail as our point of sale system for our 2,000 sq. ft. retail business, currently carrying over 8,000 active SKUS. As far as basic transactions and inventory management, it does a fantastic job. We also heavily use the customer management features of it, as well as heavy use of the special order features.
  • Great for scanning in items
  • Master Orders for generating purchase orders across multiple vendors at once
  • Ability to track multiple vendor costs
  • 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.
For retail environments with small a smaller SKU assortment and fairly straightforward receive item, sell item needs, Lightspeed is a great choice. When you start to get to larger SKU assortments and more complicated inventory reorder requirements, look elsewhere. Also cloud-based with no kind of off-line support, so bear in mind if you are in an environment where internet connection isn't always fully stable. Label printing is also limited, with very little off template printing support, so if you need more information on your labels than the default, ensure you see actual evidence of it before committing to Lightspeed.
  • Sales transactions
  • Purchase Orders / Master Orders
  • Special Orders
  • Easy to set up compared to other Point of Sales systems, if you have your data ready to go, you'll be up relatively fast with Lightspeed Retail.
When we used Revel Systems Point of Sale systems, we had problems for many months where each device would mysteriously show different pricing for the same product, which is a no-go in a retail environment, this has been several years ago, so unsure if they fixed that, but Lightspeed does not have that issue. Revel did have an off-line mode at the time, which Lightspeed is lacking.
Shopify, Google Workspace (formerly G Suite)
4
Sales associates
May 06, 2021

Lightspeed POS

Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Lightspeed retail as our main interface with customer purchases. It is used in all of my locations. It creates more business problems than solves them.
  • Robust matrix system
  • 24/7 support
  • They have not had major updates to their system in years. The inventory system is stagnant. Although their inventory system is robust, it is outdated.
  • They do have 24-hour support, however, wait times are excessive and representatives have challenges understanding your issues.
  • Trying to get issues resolved can take months or never at all. Management is non-existent. Trying to reach a supervisor is impossible.
  • They have a culture of telling you what you want to hear but have no intentions of actually following through.
  • Lightspeed is a great solution if you are a small business just getting started. But if you are intending to grow and expand, Lightspeed will become detrimental to your growth.
  • The reporting/analytics is basic at best. They do offer paid options that are very expensive, but it is very robust. The basic reporting is very minimal.
If you are a very small business just doing it for fun with no intentions of growing or expanding, Lightspeed is a perfect solution. If you are more entrepreneurial and want to grow, Lightspeed will only hold you back. I highly recommend Lightspeed though, if you are just doing it for fun.
  • Inventory control
  • In the beginning, they were great! But as we grew they did not.
  • They have become a hinderance to our growth.
The challenge with this is that because Lightspeed has such poor reporting with their POS, and the ability to actually see your data, it is nearly impossible to move to another POS without a very expensive integration process. So while I have explored these other options, I have been unable to see if they would be a better fit. However, on paper, these guys are set up to grow with you if you are a growing company.
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