Lightspeed Retail reviews

Best POS for small businesses

Opmerkingen: One major benefit is how easy my ordering is with their PO system.

Pluspunten:

I moved from Lightspeed to Clover and it's night and day. I had to piecemeal the Clover system on the back end to be useful and Lightspeed hands you so much. I've since added more and more of the Lightspeed system like loyalty because their tools are amazing. One of the best parts is their customer service. You get quick answers and they go above and beyond. Whether it's something as simple as why isn't my shipping working on ecom or how can I verify my website with the different social media platforms, their FAQs and customer service team never disappoint. If you are thinking about switching, do it. You won't regret it. It's made me more efficient all around. Thanks Lightspeed!

Minpunten:

Lots of different options so it takes a bit to determine what you need to use.

Overwogen alternatieven: Square Point of Sale, Shopify POS en Revel Systems

Redenen om voor Lightspeed Retail te kiezen: Clover wouldn't allow me to do a website. Lightspeed integrates inventory on the brick and mortar and ecommerce sides.

Overgestapt van: Square Point of Sale, Shopify POS en Revel Systems

Redenen om over te stappen op Lightspeed Retail: Best integration of inventory, ease of use, I liked all the different standard things the system had like inventory POs, employees, special orders, and more.

Horrible Customer Service

Opmerkingen: After making our first sales we were told we would have to wait 2 weeks to get our first deposit.
We understood and gave them time even though that seemed like a very long time to wait for a startup.
Unfortunately we never got out money. We were not informed anything was wrong and only when we realized we should have been paid by then did we call and ask what was wrong. We did the run-around with their support team for more than a week and STILL have not gotten paid. They are very bad at response time and when you sit on the phone you can't talk to anyone except a support member who knows nothing beyond how to help with the software. Good luck getting an email to anyone in the payments office or even have anyone in the office on a random Monday because it's a "holiday"?
We had to threaten twice that we would be moving companies before we got any sort of reassurance we would be helped within the next day. We have had to close our shop for a week now losing sales and making our potential investors skeptical of our business because of Lightspeed's mess up.

Pluspunten:

The System was very use friendly and I am sad to say I will have to go with another company because the customer service was so poor.

Minpunten:

Customer service is worse than anything we have experienced with more than 20 years in running a business.

Overwogen alternatieven: Epos Now en GoDaddy Website Builder

Redenen om over te stappen op Lightspeed Retail: Functionality and features. Retail and E-com in one package.

Awesome price with great features

Pluspunten:

Sense of ease is amazing and all the additional features you didn't think you needed but definitely would want.

Minpunten:

Only thing we have come across is the accuarcy for your mark up and margin percentage. If you change your default price, MSRP and online price as well as current inventory cost, the margin and mark up are not always accurate. Simple fix, would be to just manual calculate your mark up and margin percentage.

Series X-

Opmerkingen: Once we signed up and realized we were unhappy, our sales rep would not return our calls or emails-(Ben).We had numerous hardware issues and tech support could not figure our how to help us. For example, our bar code scanners were not functioning correctly and we had to search for days on the web to figure out how to fix ourselves.

Pluspunten:

The only two positive things I can say is Lightspeed payments work seamlessly and Dylan, our trainer was great.

Minpunten:

Cons:1. The register pops open on every transaction-including charges2. Try and find a sales transaction from a couple of months ago. Lightspeed only shows a limited amount for each day.3. There are limited amount of reports available.4. Only uses Dymo printers which are cheap, always jam and the product tags are extremely expensive. If you tag your mechandise, get ready to spend alot!5. Jumped into training mode without a warning and no way to prevent soneone from going into training mode.6. Lacks a variety of controls that you can give a user. 7. Products can only be priced by markup not margins.8.Good luck tracking returns.9. Payment reports are confusing.10. When you call support, be prepared to know more than they do!

Overwogen alternatieven: Rain POS, KORONA POS en Shopify

Redenen om voor Lightspeed Retail te kiezen: We wanted a better product

Redenen om over te stappen op Lightspeed Retail: We liked some of the features with Lightspeed. We thought we were signing up for lightspeed the R version but got talked into the X version. The X version is so juvenile compared to Quickbooks POS.

Best software for inventory management!

Opmerkingen: I personally like lightspeed for inventory management. It is one of the most complete software out there and it is still growing. I would like to see them growing in other areas as well.

Pluspunten:

I have been using Lightspeed Retail for 2 years, and the overall experience has been great. We chose this software over others because of its great inventory system. Lightspeed is one of the best out there in terms of inventory management. It has many options to play with, making it easy to integrate your business. They have exceptional customer service (live chat available every day).

Minpunten:

Lightspeed is still growing. We could compare it to a startup with a great community behind it, but it is still implementing changes daily to become a better software. The POS system could have a better interface when using a tablet. The interface is simple but differs greatly when used on a computer. I would enjoy a more visual interface for its POS system. The barcode system works great, but I highly recommend spending a reasonable amount of money on the scanner to avoid many issues. We also use lightspeed e-commerce. Connecting retail and e-commerce together is easy, but it gets tricky if you need help from third parties apps. Lightspeed is not the best when connecting to a third party yet (they don't offer many options).

Great for Retail

Pluspunten:

We have been using Lightspeed for our retail firearm business and this has been very helpful for us in monitoring our sales and inventory. This is great for small businesses like us and priced reasonably.

Minpunten:

None that i can think of. Lightspeed has been great for our business.

Overwogen alternatieven: Square Point of Sale

Redenen om voor Lightspeed Retail te kiezen: Better in inventory management, control and audit for Lightspeed

Overgestapt van: Square Point of Sale

Redenen om over te stappen op Lightspeed Retail: Better in inventory management, control and audit for Lightspeed

Loved it!

Opmerkingen: It was amazing. Loved ii!

Pluspunten:

The Lightspeed Retail system is a comprehensive management solution for retailers, offering a variety of tools to manage inventory, process payments, handle orders, and facilitate e-commerce. Its user-friendly interface and customizable features make it a standout option, allowing retailers to personalize the system to meet their individual needs. In addition to its robust capabilities, Lightspeed Retail also provides mobile access and website management functionality, providing retailers with a versatile solution for managing their business operations.

Minpunten:

The level of customer support provided could be improved as there have been instances in the past where reports were not able to be downloaded. But compared to all the pros it's nothing!

"An Efficient Retail Management Solution"

Opmerkingen: Overall, Lightspeed Retail is a reliable and efficient retail management solution that can help retailers improve their operations and customer experience.

Pluspunten:

Lightspeed Retail is a comprehensive retail management system that offers a range of tools for inventory management, point of sale (POS), e-commerce, order management, payment processing, website management, and mobile access. The system is known for its user-friendly interface and customizable features that allow retailers to tailor the system to their specific needs.

Minpunten:

No, this is because Lightspeed Retail offers real-time updates of sales, inventory, and customer information, and provides robust reporting and analytics features to help retailers make informed business decisions. The system also offers seamless integration with various shipping carriers, payment processors, and marketing tools. It gives you everything that you need and desire.

a point of sale (POS) and inventory management system designed for small businesses

Opmerkingen: Overall, Lightspeed Retail is an excellent choice for small businesses looking for a comprehensive and easy-to-use POS and inventory management system. It offers a wide range of features, is simple to use, and is supported by a responsive customer support team.

Pluspunten:

Lightspeed Retail is a point of sale (POS) and inventory management system designed for small businesses. The system is known for its ease of use, powerful inventory management tools and its ability to integrate with various online marketplaces such as Shopify and Amazon.The user interface is intuitive and easy to navigate, making it simple for employees to learn and use. The inventory management tools are particularly useful, allowing businesses to track stock levels, set reorder points, and generate reports on sales and stock movements. Additionally, Lightspeed Retail offers a variety of tools for managing customers, including a loyalty program, and gift card management.One of the standout features of Lightspeed Retail is its ability to integrate with e-commerce platforms. This allows businesses to manage both their online and in-store sales from one centralized system.

Minpunten:

hardware integrations issues, only certified harware can integrated with tis software.

Outstanding for retail stores with pooled inventory

Opmerkingen: Greater Inventory Accuracy Numerous Sales Reporting and Analytics Options Customer-friendly ease of doing businessI am aware that there are issues with any system. Overall, I'm satisfied with LightSpeed's service and performance. It is dependable, and despite the few issues I have, I am happy with it.

Pluspunten:

A product's ability to be organised under one parent product while having several versions, as in combination and matrix products. Incredibly simple to utilise and instruct to new team members. Many features, including simple refunds and returns.

Minpunten:

Particularly during peak retail seasons, our customer service has occasionally been slower. When needed, customer service can be a touch sparse. reports not downloading has been a problem in the past.

If you want seamless eCom and Retail DO NOT USE LIGHTSPEED

Opmerkingen: I would not recommend anyone, in any situation, use these features or services provided by Lightspeed. They are money hungry and nothing else.

Pluspunten:

I liked the sales pitch. He promised a ton of stuff that I wanted to hear. Unfortunately none of that stuff ever panned out. Just like a politician.

Minpunten:

Here is a list of my complaints about Lightspeed Omnichannel (eCom + Retail PoS) - No E-mail Automation what-so-ever, you'll pay $10/month just for Abandoned Cart Recovery E-mails - Are you a franchise with individually owned locations? No support for that. - You can only add one merchant gateway on your entire account, but you can have up to 100 locations. But if each locations needs a separate bank account, NOPE. - Loyalty and Customer Data does not sync between multiple lightspeed accounts to help remedy the above. - Online documentation is wrong about 80% of the time. - Importing products, customer data, etc is chaotic at best. - The eCommerce features are not in sync with the PoS side. - Loyalty program doesn't just have a "For every 100 points get $1 off" option, you have to set very static discounts for loyalty - Customer service takes weeks to respond if you have any issue outside of what Support can handle - Tech Support will respond with "Lightspeed doesn't currently offer a feature like that, you can custom develop your own though using our API." - Every action you need done, will require another department to speak to, which they'll get back to you weeks later.

Overwogen alternatieven: WooCommerce

Redenen om voor Lightspeed Retail te kiezen: Shopify no longer supports cannabis companies.

Overgestapt van: Shopify POS

Redenen om over te stappen op Lightspeed Retail: The sales person promised things that in reality were never going to happen.

Read This Before Switching to Lightspeed

Opmerkingen: I have used Lightspeed for almost a year and it is not good. I read these reviews before we switched from another POS system and I was so confident I was going to love it, I switched both of my stores. Lightspeed has a great sales team, they tell you with confidence how great the system is and the demo works in the limited amount you can use it. All the features sound so easy and perfect and the integration with accounting was just what I was looking for!
If you are a fan of duplicate and complicated processes that fail regularly, you have found the system you are looking for. Lightspeed payments is a mess, it has crashed multiple times since our switch in June, 2021. We started out with iPads and the bluetooth chip/tap reader and receipt printer disconnect constantly. We have had to manually enter credit cards for up to 2 weeks at a time because the readers wouldn't connect. Duplicate credit card charges on single purchases are common (up to 5 charges! Yeah I get to pay fees on all of them too.) because the computer or iPad says payment failed and the customer swipes or taps the card again. We have 2 registers at each store and they randomly switch from register 1 to register 2, which makes EOD a mess! We have spent hours on hold with support and get the same answers each time, "they are working on it".
Many of the features are for older versions that really don't do much but clutter the system. I am sure in 2005, this was a great system but now the UI is not int

Pluspunten:

Reporting is better than my previous POS and integration with Quickbooks. works most of the time.

Minpunten:

Everything but reporting. This system is not user friendly, there is no consistency and it is difficult to get a workflow down because the pages are not similar. Searches are difficult ant there is much duplication in efforts! To enter a P/O and create items for e-com, you have to open as many as 5 browser tabs! All for something that Shopify can do in 1.

Overwogen alternatieven: Square Point of Sale

Redenen om voor Lightspeed Retail te kiezen: Shopify had bad reporting and had to use a 3rd party app to connect to Quicbooks. Also didn't transfer COGS because their API doesn't allow that for 3rd party apps.

Overgestapt van: Shopify POS

Redenen om over te stappen op Lightspeed Retail: It looked like the best option, I liked the e-commerce integration, reporting, loyalty program and had other merchants recommend it. They have since changed their opinion also.

TRACK YOUR PROFIT MARGINS!

Opmerkingen: I have a small health food store in Sullivan, MO. We have been online with Lightspeed POS for nearly a year now. The partnership with Pointy is much appreciated. Even without paying for additional online presence I believe the Pointy helps direct traffic to our business for sure! Also the Lightspeed system easily allows you to track profit margins and sales. This by far has been my favorite asset to the system. Of course it does rely on setting up your inventory accurate, which is a process but a process that is undoubtedly an INVESTMENT! I tracked sales over a couple of months and noticed a dip in profit margins and traced that back to companies raising wholesale but not increasing the MSRP. This hurts brick and mortar retailers. I was able to easily pull up these products from certain vendors in an isolated manner and go through where our retail prices were set and be sure we were setting it at a proper profit margin to keep the lights on! A month after doing this I noticed profits margins went from 35-37% to 38-40%. We offer 20% off our set prices just to keep up with online businesses, so we have to make sure the set retail will allow us a proper profit margin after the advertised discount. LOVE this feature! Customer service has been prompt to help anytime we have asked. They are adding and improving things all the time!

Pluspunten:

Being able to track profit margins and sales. Knowing what products to keep around and which ones to remove from inventory.

Minpunten:

There are 2 different sales screens and each has their pros and cons…. but this is probably the most confusing thing in the system.

Overwogen alternatieven: Square Point of Sale en Clover

Redenen om over te stappen op Lightspeed Retail: The setup and Cloudbase of inventory. I can check sells, products, etc. from anywhere.

Why I Chose Lightspeed

Opmerkingen: I especially love the 24 hour help desk.

Pluspunten:

Customer service is available 24 hours. During the pandemic obviously the wait time for help took longer but most of the time it was efficient and easy to implement. I am a technological dinosaur and the learning curve was an uphill battle but customer service always came through for me. So happy that the payment options finally were added.

Minpunten:

It has taken me longer than I had expected to integrate my existing business with Lightspeed but that could be because of the pandemic and the wait time involved to get help. I am having difficulties getting my website finished so I can integrate with e-commerce. I wish the billing and administrative department was open on weekends.

Overwogen alternatieven: Shopify POS

Redenen om voor Lightspeed Retail te kiezen: I didnt like dealing with all the apps in Shopify

Overgestapt van: Shopify POS

Redenen om over te stappen op Lightspeed Retail: I felt that Lightspeed was a complete package that looked professional and was relatively easy to use once the basic principles were in place. The move into e-commerce would be smooth.

Best value & functionaility point of sale. Period.

Opmerkingen: Overall it's been wonderful. Certainly has made my slow business growth possible.

Pluspunten:

Absolutely the BEST thing about Lightspeed is the quick access to knowledgeable support. Also, Lightspeed meets the needs of my business's work flow. The interface is clean and easy to navigate.

Minpunten:

That a default option is not available for adding a drop ship address to PO.

Best decision I made for my business!

Opmerkingen: Overall, I would recommend Lightspeed POS to any other retailer (especially clothing and shoes) in a heartbeat! If you have been manually counting inventory and have no customer sales data, this is a must. It was easy to set up and continued to be easy to use for me and my employees. The cloud based feature is perfect because I never have to worry about backing up important data and I can "see" my business from any device with internet access. It's brilliant.

Pluspunten:

Lightspeed POS provided instant inventory, sales, customer and employee data that was missing from my retail business. It was relatively easy to set up and I had lots of support! The amount of information we now have about our retail business is staggering and it allowed us to connect multiple locations which made inventory transfer a breeze!

Minpunten:

I had hoped for an integrated Loyalty program from the start (this has now been launched). We were manually keeping track of points for our customers which became tedious and inaccurate quickly. The new Loyalty is a good start but it feels a bit clumsy at times and not as customizable as I would like. Sometimes inventory issues pop up when items are returned. For example, special orders from one location that are added to a purchase order for our main location, automatically show in stock at the needed location when simply checked in at main location. This can cause confusion as they are not physically at the needed location just yet. They have to be physically transferred but should not be added to inventory or received once they arrive (they were already there!). This took us a while to figure out and caused many inventory numbers to get out of whack.

Overwogen alternatieven: Microsoft Project en Quickbooks Online

Overgestapt van: Microsoft Project en Quickbooks Online

Redenen om over te stappen op Lightspeed Retail: Lightspeed POS was cloud-based (which I'm a fan of), required minimal equipment cost layout at the beginning, they had monthly payment options, support was included, it had features to include inventory, purchasing, reporting, customer data (previous purchases), employee virtual time cards, integration with my e-commerce needs (real-time inventory), multi-location abilities, matrices for products that come in multiple sizes and colours.

We LOVE Lightspeed POS Retail

Opmerkingen: More Accurate Inventory
Many Sales Report Options Available/Analytics
Ease of Doing Business
Customer Friendly

Pluspunten:

This software is designed for RETAIL, makes doing business in our Realtor Store simple. Ringing up customer is a breeze. Easy and fast to create a purchase order and receive products to inventory. This software is intuitive and simple to learn. We keep track of our inventory and sales reports, with accuracy. Love the scanners and printed product label option.

Minpunten:

The only negative is the long wait by phone, when we need to speak to support. Definitely worth the wait! All customer service people are polite. They always help us work through our issue with professionalism and follow-up email.

Overwogen alternatieven: Square Point of Sale en Vend

Redenen om voor Lightspeed Retail te kiezen: RAMCO was not designed for RETAIL or On-line Store

Redenen om over te stappen op Lightspeed Retail: Even thought it wasn't the least expensive, Lightspeed seemed to provide everything we needed to meet our needs. We also had a great sales person, who explained the software to us and helped us along the way. His name was [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN].

The negatives far outweigh the positives for this software

Opmerkingen: I could go on further about the cons of this POS system, but I ran out of available space in the "cons" field. Overall, the cons far outweigh the pros for this system in our application. On top of that, I was essentially coerced into switching from Lightspeed OnSite, which worked almost perfect for us, to LightSpeed Retail. I was told that after March 31st, I would no longer be able to use OnSite anymore. So I had to switch to something else, regardless, or so I was told. Well, little did I know that OnSite is still able to be used since we had originally purchased the perpetual license back in 2012. I'm trying to make Retail work for me, but it's highly likely that we either switch back to OnSite or to something else altogether.

Pluspunten:

It's very convenient that it's cloud based, allowing me to access my POS from anywhere. The payment processing is very quick. For commission based employees, it's nice to be able to assign employee credit to different line items on a single sale. The inventory matrix tool is very convenient when it comes to editing wholesale and retail pricing. That's about where the positives end for me in regards to this POS system.

Minpunten:

*Individual customers can only have a single sale/layaway/special order at a time. I hope you don't deal with commercial accounts that send their orders to you using separate POs. There's no way to separate different orders from a customer. It all gets put on the same sale/layaway/special order. *If I send a purchase order to a vendor for 10 items, but that vendor is only able to ship me 5 of those items immediately, and will ship the other 5 once available, I have to delete the 5 backordered items off of that PO in order for the "finished" PO to match the invoice sent by the vendor for the 5 items that did ship immediately. Once the PO is "finished" in retail, I'm unable to edit it or add the backordered items back to it. *So I need to make a completely new PO with those backordered items and reference the original PO in the notes so I can trace it when those backordered items do finally ship. *There's no easy way to view all customer layaways/special orders and the information/notes within each one. *The "Company Name" field of a customer account doesn't show up on the customer lists. *Trying to print labels is a really goofy process. *I'm unable to change the "ship to" address on purchase orders if I need a product shipped to different locations, example: drop shipping directly to customer. *There's no way to print a customer packing slip for deliveries or shipments. *Discounts are applied to total quantity cost of line items, instead of each item individually.

Lightspeed issues

Opmerkingen: not horrible not great

Pluspunten:

it's pretty easy, the inventory entering is easy, sales are easy. Reports are good, although none of them integrate, you have to pull 3-4 reports to get what you need unless you upgrade to way more $

Minpunten:

This is an app based program, so there are definite issues using this with an iPad, which is how we run our retail store. The gift card has been a problem from day one which we have reported many time and have an open ongoing unresolved case. We purchased the gift card from the company they recommended and they both point fingers at each other, meanwhile it is a nightmare for our customers who have to sit & wait while we figure out how to make their return or issue a gift card. Still not resolved. The cache fills up and you have to delete the app and reload it or certain functions do not work, like getting a new customers name in the system. The last thing you want to deal with is deleting an ap and reloading it. Customer service on management level is incredibly slow to respond if they ever do. The day to day service is very responsive. The rep also over sold us the program and sold us 2 registers and so we over paid $1,000 a year for 3 years until we caught it. Never heard back from upper management regarding a credit or a few free months. They are very responsive when you are up for review though! ALSO beware of their own integrative payment processing that they tell you will save you a lot of $, not really true.Get it in writing. First of all they will take their fee right off the top daily, so forget trying to reconcile your statement with your daily reports. You will get paid for Wed, Thur & friday the following Tuesday...so your cash flow is delayed. Way slow!!!!!!

Overwogen alternatieven: Clover en Shopify

Redenen om over te stappen op Lightspeed Retail: 5 years ago it was the best option.

Solid eCommerce Platform

Opmerkingen: I currently use both Lightspeed eCom & Retail (Omni-channel). This helps our retail store and online store stay synced and makes life easier for employees. Now, all POS sales and eCom sales are in one platform that is easy to use for our employees. If a customer purchases an item in our retail store, ecommerce inventory stays updated.

Pluspunten:

I really like that I am able to customize our website and integrate third party apps & APIs easily. And the customer service, the customer service is top notch! Through migration and implementation, the Lightspeed team was right there. At a moment's notice, I can chat with the team or give them a call. Although I may be a one-woman tech team, I have help! It's such a blessing to have a support team for our business. It has been easy to integrate all of our business critical resources and provide a more unified experience for our employees. Employees can access customer data, order data, shipping data, marketing data and product data in one platform. I've been able to customize our store template to our specific business needs and design requirements. It's been a developer's dream.

Minpunten:

My main dislike is that I don't have FTP access to my files on LS servers. This would be extremely helpful to optimize our images as needed. I also would like to upload customer data myself. At this time, to upload customer data in bulk, I have to send the data to Lightspeed for import. More options for discounts and coupons would be helpful - BOGO, Buy 2 Get One, or FREE Shipping codes based on domestic addresses only (not international).

Lightspeed is great on the front side, and a nightmare on the backside

Opmerkingen: -We switched to Lightspeed from ShopKeep because we needed to manage the inventory of our 5 locations in one place. That part works okay, once you figure out all the idiosyncrasies of the restock and reorder system. We had to hire a person just to manage the work-arounds we put in place to make Lightspeed a functional system for my business (because there are so many tedious extra steps).
-Feeling stuck is the worst feeling as a small business owner. Lightspeed make me feel stuck. I hit a new wall in the system regularly, and when I ask for what I need, the answer is ALWAYS "no, we can't do that." Some examples: -The system does very little to tie sales and inventory together, it does next to nothing. You can export a sales report by item name, which is great. It tells you how many you sold, your sales numbers, and how many you have left. But the vendor information nor the department information for the sold items is not on the export. That makes the report useless in terms of knowing what vendors your business is coming from. Their answer is you can then export vendor sales separately. That is not helpful, because that export does not include item info or department info, nor does it tell you your on-hand inventory. There is not a single way in Lightspeed to view your sales and on-hand inventory in one place, and because their exported reports are so sparing of relevant information, I can't even create my own. This is a major flaw. With ShopKeep, at least I could get my data out of the system to manipulate it how I needed. With Lightspeed, I am SOL. -I don't even call customer service anymore because 100% of the time all they do is validate the problem and then offer no solution. Their consistent response is to tell me to make a suggestion to their developers. -I have been in business 10 years. We have 5 locations, and a website. I have 40 employees. I think Lightspeed would work for a single location or 2 location business. But any more than the system creates more work than it takes away. Looking back, I wish I would have stayed with Shopkeep.

Pluspunten:

The check-out system is nice and easy. For multi-locations it is helpful to see sales and inventory in one place.

Minpunten:

-there is no flexibility in the system. The way Lightspeed wants you to see and retrieve your data is the ONLY way you can get your data. And their way 90% of the time is not relevant to the basic needs of a retailer to analyze and evaluate their business. -Customer Service is not responsive. The company does not seem willing to listen to complaints or provide work arounds to the rigidity of the system. - The eCom site is FULL of problems that they do not have a handle on. There are many limitations with the way you have to present information on the site. -It's very expensive for what you get. I was willing to pay a premium for a system I was told would exceed our needs and expectations. For the 2 things it does well, there are 98 headaches. -They do not offer refunds or a way out of your contract if you are unhappy.

Lightspeed ROCKS!!!

Opmerkingen: AMAZING

Pluspunten:

We operate 4 Cannonball Cafés in Jamaica. This is our second year of using Lightspeed. When we bought the business in 2016, we installed another company's system which, after a few months use, revealed it's weakness for use in a multi-unit business. We plodded along for awhile under the "Better to stay with the Devil you know..." philosophy until a sharp eyed customer got very upset because she noticed the price of one of our specialty coffees at one location was vastly different from another location... we had made a late night keystroke mistake entering the updated prices! What caught our eye with Lightspeed was the powerful Back-of-House infrastructure that allows us to make REMOTE CHANGES to our menus, our controls etc IN AN INSTANT on our phones, tablets or computers: last year on a trip to China, we got a text from one of our managers requesting a menu addition - somewhere over the Pacific at 40,000 feet, my wife added the item and went back to sleep!!!! The level of detail that supports our business goes far beyond what we could imagine - while a lot of detail & thought has to go into setting up Lightspeed initially, that effort pays dividends when using the system. Finally, the support we get from the Technical Support team is amazing - the Techs are all very well trained, are extremely knowledgeable and can resolve problems that are outside their Lightspeed purview: in September, a store was having a weird connectivity problem that was traced by [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] in Te

Minpunten:

Have not found anything to dislike about it.

Worst Business Decision

Pluspunten:

I have no pros. I would like to take this opportunity to preface my review with the fact that I am not a negative review writer. As a business owner myself, I generally live by the golden rule of doing business and give the benefit of the doubt in most cases. I took the time to write this today because I simply want to save you from the hardship of the lessons learned by so many business owners here.

Minpunten:

If you are considering Lightspeed for your business, please STOP HERE and do research. Allow the hundreds of negative reviews that came before mine to be your bright waving red flag. I DEFINITELY wish someone had told me to read some of these before entering an agreement with this company. Also, my lawyer would have STRONGLY advised me against entering this agreement, but unfortunately it was too late for me. Hopefully, it is NOT too late for you. I'll keep this short: 1.) Lightspeed is overpriced, 2.) Lightspeed's product is mediocre: glitchy and has limitations, 3.) Lightspeed contract terms are extremely binding, consider them unethical. 4.) Lightspeed will do nothing for you as a customer. Your concerns will be deferred from person to person all with their arms up in the air until you get tired of trying to find a reasonable resolution and you land here, at the end of your rope writing a negative review with hope that someone will learn from your mistake and stay away. I'm pretty certain if the business owner died, Lightspeed will go after their loved ones for a payout. This is not a company any business owner should do business with.

Still love it after 15 months

Opmerkingen: While there are pros and cons, the pros far outweigh the cons. It's easy to use, intuitive, and best of all, THEY LISTEN. It doesn't take 10,000 customers complaining to get Lightspeed to make a change. Their support is excellent.

Pluspunten:

Onboarding and setup was a breeze - After signing on, we were tasked with a tutorial and onboarding process which, at times, was drawn out, but VERY helpful. It was a great learning tool and incredibly useful. They offered additional resources, but given my stubborn nature I set out on my own. The onboarding process was fairly easy. Painstaking, but simple. There were a few tasks that more difficult than necessary though. Like building the floor plan. I am very meticulous and there were not many options for the design, but I was able to figure it out with assistance from the help desk. Very customizable layout and very versatile - The overall operation of the system is very easy, but not basic. Ease of use is key to me, especially when training new employees or adding/changing features. Need a new menu item on a certain screen? 30 seconds. Need to reorganize the layout? Just drag and drop. Color code menu items? Sure why not. We change our menu daily/weekly, so this was an important feature to me and my FOH manager. GThe back end and reporting is excellent as well. I was able to show the owner how to access the dashboard and view sales and sales vs goals. I can see how many of (X) item I sold when I ran it as a special, or how much of a certain item I sell week to week. We use it as our time clock, and even my BOH with ZERO knowledge of the system figured it out in seconds.

Minpunten:

The only major complaint I have is that there aren't enough credit card processors integrated in to the system, which is crucial to me.

Not suited for small businesses, Big Box Store Perfect!

Opmerkingen: Frustrating. Doosync - the migration company, by the way was awesome!

Pluspunten:

I think it makes accepting online sales easy but that's about it for me.

Minpunten:

I didn't realize how much I LOVED Lightspeed On-Site until we switched to Retail. We were recommended to move to Lightspeed Retail because On-Site is old technology, however this program is way inferior for small businesses. Once we were contacted to move to Retail coincidentally our On-Site started having issues like our subscription wasn't renewed and our e-Com store was turned off randomly. Not really knowing what was going on... it made sense to change to the cloud based program they were really encouraging us to move to. Now that we have gone live I realize this program is not as complex regarding small businesses, and offers very little customizations for our personal style. I was told the Analytics feature for $1000 would give me the options I need to customize the program to our business such as implementing sales targets our staff could see and a customizable dashboard.... don't think it can. It really just gives you more reports than a one brick & mortar plus online store needs. It's not relevant. Also....we thought moving to retail with our physical and eCom store would run smoother and that gift cards would work between both platforms. Again... not the case. Gift cards are not available online nor can in store cards be used online without a lot of effort in making that happen. I think if you owned multiple stores that just reordered the same inventory and didn't care about labels or gift cards this would be the perfect system for you!