Lightspeed Review
Performance-boosting insights
Personalized expert support
Built-in fraud prevention & PCI compliant
Easily manage inventory, staff, and data from one place
User Reviews
Great platform
Many of my customers love the platform they use on my website. It’s easy and make the shopping fun for them.
POS
Easy and inexpensive to switch to Lightspeed, great support. Easy to use. Have not regretted the switch once.
Feedback
Excellent customer service! Excellent support! Friendly and professional! 5 stars
Pros & Cons
- All-in-one solution
- Rich customization options
- Great insights & analytics features
- Amazing customer support
- No variety in price packages
- Some analytics tools come at an additional cost
Plans & Pricing
Lightspeed’s offers pricing for whatever stage your business is at. Each of the plans are billed monthly and annually. All plans allow you to accept credit card payments at a card-present rate of 2.6% + 10¢ and a card-not-present rate of 2.6% + 30¢.
Conveniently, they offer a 14-day trial that grants you access to every bit of the platform’s functionality, making it a great way to test the water without investing a single dime. Sign up, choose your type of business, and you’ll be set to go in no time!
Lean
The Lean plan is exactly what it sounds like. For $69 per month, you’ll get basic retail functionality. It is a pretty great deal for anyone looking to get started.
Standard
The Standard plan is their most recommended package. For $119 per month you will have retail functionality, eCommerce capabilities, and accounting, to make sure you’re organized and maximizing your profits.
Advanced
For $199 per month you can have all of the features of the standard plan, plus the addition of customer loyalty features.
Enterprise
Finally, the Enterprise plan gives you everything above, plus deep analytics, at a customized price. This plan is for the more serious business that is ready to look deep into their numbers and grow even more. In order to find out about pricing, you can contact Lightspeed to get a quote.
Overview
Lightspeed is a feature-rich all-in-one solution for small businesses from the retail and restaurant industries. With its help, one can easily manage staff, customer relationships, large volumes of data, inventory, as well as payments, transactions, and stocking. That said, the diversity of applications is far from being Lightspeed’s key selling point. The company’s focus on helping entrepreneurs from all around the globe seals the deal for most of their users. Lightspeed POS is a versatile point-of-sale system that caters to various industries such as retail (including apparel, bike, books, electronics, health, home & garden, jewelry), restaurant, quick service, hotels, and golf retail. However, it does not support certain industries like food truck, pizzeria, catering, groceries, and services, including food & beverage. With its range of features and capabilities, Lightspeed POS is an excellent choice for businesses in industries it supports.
Features and Functionality
We’ve talked about Lightspeed being an all-in-one POS solution for small businesses before, but now the time has come to dive a bit deeper.
Inventory management
Lightspeed comes with a set of handy features for inventory management:
- Item import: Simple data transfers from one platform to another via Excel or CSV files.
- Product customization: Add additional descriptions like size and color to your products or categorize them by certain sets of parameters.
- Bulk stocking: You can easily stock from multiple vendors at once saving time and money in the process. More on the matter, you can order stock directly from your POS.
Reporting and analytics
With the built-in reporting functionality your POS grows from a tool for selling into a full-blown CRM system:
- Retail analytics: Learn more about new and recurring customers, your own stock, and best-selling items.
- Employee tracking: Check the performance of your staff and, essentially, the success of the established sales process.
- Remote reporting: You can’t stay at work 24/7. That doesn’t mean that you can’t check on how the things are going from the comfort of your couch.
Integrated payments
Lightspeed can accept any kind of payment whether it be cash, card, or mobile. The payment process is PCI compliant, meaning credit card data is processed and transmitted electronically in a secure environment. The payment system is EMV-compatible as well.
Customer management
Managing your gift cards, special discounts, and loyalty programs have never been simpler. Set them up in one place and control the sales flow with data-driven decisions on which items are more relevant as an up-sale to your customers.
Hardware Requirements
While all that you essentially need to work is a computer or an iPad, Lightspeed offers several hardware kits for small businesses. You can purchase them in bundles or, alternatively, you can order the items you need in your store separately. More on the matter, you can get them made in a custom design that fits the style and interior of your business.
iPad hardware kit
This kit includes a LAN receipt printer, a cash drawer, a Bluetooth scanner, an iPad stand, and some receipt paper. This bundle is designed for a seamless wireless experience. Simply take the tablet with you and help your customers shop on the fly instead of forcing them to stand in a queue.
The desktop hardware kit
This bundle comes with a cash drawer, a USB scanner, and a USB receipt printer all designed to give a slick, modern vibe from the casher’s stand.
Integrations & Add-ons
Lightspeed POS is compatible with an impressive list of nearly 100 applications like 1-Click website, Ask Emma, Agendrix, Cludbeds, Clock, etc.
It would be much easier to talk about the categories of these apps than to describe each and every one of them in detail. You can easily integrate marketing, analytics, ERP, employee management, payment processing, inventory management, and customer loyalty solutions in a few quick taps of your finger.
Ease of Use
Lightspeed is simple and intuitive enough that you’ll get a good feel of it quite quickly. Setting the tool up is as hard as filling up a form of three fields, and the interface is so straightforward that you’ll feel like someone is holding your hand.
Customer Support
Lightspeed is an outstanding example of support done right. The team covers every aspect of client interactions from the questions people will have about setting up the system, to ongoing maintenance inquiries. Every plan comes with a 100% free of charge one on one session with a professional willing to help out with setting everything up. In addition, you’ll also have access to other support options:
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24/7 Help & Support
If you run into issues, the support team is available at any time of the day. -
Phone Support
Pick up your phone and have your questions answered at any time of day or night. -
Live Online Chat
If you don’t feel like calling and an email seems like it will take too long, contact Lightspeed via their live chat. -
Email
You can shoot a quick email and get a response in a couple of minutes. -
Video Tutorials
Learn more about Lightspeed and some features that might have been tucked away in a corner through an interactive webinar. -
Community Forum
Check out Lightspeed’s forum to learn about the inquiries other users have faced and solved. -
Blog
Lightspeed's blog shares new information about POS software/hardware and interesting insights about the retail industry in general.
Final Word
Lightspeed is a simple, intuitive solution designed for small businesses from the retail and restaurant industries. It has the functionality you’ll need, focused in a single, easily manageable place, and the system tosses in a few handy features you never even knew you needed. All in all, Lightspeed is an amazing quality of life improvement for retailers and restaurant owners.
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It looks like this system is iPad only. Will it connect it to a cash drawer?
I have both a brick-and-mortar store and an online shop. Can I link the transactions and inventory of them both?
I’ve never used an iPad before. How easy is the system to learn?