Lightspeed Retail Reviews

Pros

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!

Cons

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

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale, Shopify POS and Revel Systems

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

Clover wouldn't allow me to do a website. Lightspeed integrates inventory on the brick and mortar and ecommerce sides.

Switched From

Square Point of Sale, Shopify POS and Revel Systems

Reasons for Switching to 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.

Pros

Creating items and managing retail is very easy through Lightspeed Retail. The reporting features allow you to make great decisions for your business based on accurate data. Anytime I need help with something or am unsure as to how to do something regarding any feature of Lightspeed Retail, support is only a click away through the helpful chat feature. They are almost always immediate to respond and always kind and patient with any question.

Cons

Understanding how retail communicates with eCom is a little intimidating at first and simply took a minute to wrap my head around how it links together. Discounting could be a little more straight forward too but overall ok.

Alternatives Considered

GolfNow

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

There was nothing straight forward or easy about Club Prophet and their retail system. Everything was antiquated and reporting was challenging.

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

Lightspeed offered everything we need as a whole for our golf operation including tee sheet management, retail, website, marketing, and more.

Pros

No positive features! Back office not easy to navigate need to be a computer genius, their txt msg instruction is disgraceful.

Cons

Quick to sign you up, their after sales service is disgraceful !! No prioritise when urgent! Have lost sales due to incompetence. Whole system shut down after an upgrade no apologies! Never get emails or response back from management.

Pros

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).

Cons

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).

Pros

I tinkered with this software and got ot know this from the inside and out. I like the functionalities as it allows you to break free from the spreadsheet and manual entry. Gone are the days of tallying and doing adjustments on a piece of paper. It has filter functions for reporting, it auto calculates taxes by assigning it in the initial setup, browser printing integration, you can conveniently import inventory from a csv file to your POS system and export those reports in a csv format. The hardware associated to it works seamlessly like the tablets, scanners, and printers. Although , it endorses Apple products, it works perfectly fine with Windows operating systems. It also has a companion product which is called Lightspeed Accounting that is comparable to Quickbooks

Cons

A few bugs are slowly being fixed as each maintenance and update is released, just like any other software. Although workarounds can be done to remedy it, but you'd have to seek assistance from Tech Support.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

We were after functionalities that Lightspeed can provide. Although both of them are similar, the interface is more user-friendly compared to Quickbooks. And that is important for us, since learning a new tool can be taxing with the time you need to spend navigating and learning it from the inside and out.

Pros

Customer Support is included and accessible
Intuitive
Useful for heavy amounts of inventory
Cloud Based
Accessible via multiple operating systems
Integrated with Cayan for seamless transition from my previous POS
Has extensions that enable enhanced reporting, loyalty and ecommerce integration
Updates are included

Cons

Frequently Buggy
UX issues at times
E-commerce integration is through third party
Advanced Reporting is an additional cost and is still poorly designed and buggy
Long waits for Customer Support
Widespread Outages do Occur

Alternatives Considered

Retail Pro and Shopify

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

We found limitations in integrations with e-commerce as well as difficulty with the licensing for Retail Pro. Not being cloud computing was very limiting, customer service being an additional fee was frustrating and that same customer service torpedoing our system and the backup was the death knell

Switched From

Retail Pro

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

Most cloud POS seemed geared for start up or micro retail. Lightspeed had the best blend of power needed to handle a sizable company as well as the agility to be cloud based and utilize mobile platforms. The ability to have an integration with Shopify as well as the integrated customer support was the perfect nudge to migrate to Lightspeed

Pros

The fully integrated credit card payments has been wonderful, not having to use two separate systems to complete the sale has been great. Also the integrated inventory between retail and ecom has been great. Sell it in one place and inventory get adjusted across all platforms. Also the ability to use multiple registers at once and complete payments at the same time has been a life saver.

Cons

The additional cost for some of the features in the ecom, such as different layouts for the website that would incorporate things such as reviews on other websites. The limited analytical information you have at your disposal without having to pay for lightspeed analytics.

Alternatives Considered

The Edge and MicroBiz Cloud POS

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

Lack of options, no website integration. Multiple registers and credit card terminals.

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

Features that were part of the standard cost. No crazy one time fees to import inventory, customers, and vendors. Built in website designer and integrated inventory and payments.

Pros

The sales tools are very easy to understand and enable us to train new employees quickly on the software. The software also makes managing multiple store locations easy and centralizes order and vendor information for our product managers to use across the company and analytics and insights that the software provides is essential to master the merchandising and inventory needs of our store.

Cons

While Lightspeed offers excellent analytics tools and integrations, most of them come at an additional cost which may be a deterrent for smaller businesses. If you aren't planning on investing a great deal of effort into the growth of your business (i.e. more locations or omnichannel sales) than you may be better served with another option. Also, while there are several integrations and API connections available for the system without designing custom solutions, some POS systems offer greater scalability and integrations with software like third-party e-commerce management tools. When moving away from Lightspeed's products for solutions such as this, costs can quickly add up.

Alternatives Considered

Revel Systems

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

We prefer that Lightspeed POS is a cloud-based system that can run on a desktop computer as opposed to Revel's iPad operating system. Also, Lightspeed offered greater flexibility in selecting merchant solutions like payment processors and credit card transaction equipment.

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

Better in inventory management, control and audit for Lightspeed

Switched From

Square Point of Sale

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

Better in inventory management, control and audit for Lightspeed

Pros

Simplicity and very user friendly! Best product for 1 store or mulit store operation!

Cons

No Comment. Its the best! I would recommend to anyone in Retail business!

Pros

The user interface was my first draw to Lightspeed. Ease of use and mostly easy workflows pulled me in. We also like the numerous integratabtle add ons available. The multi-store feature works well.

Cons

It did not believe in negative numbers but that is changing. We do not like that custom fields don't save the same way as other standard fields.

Alternatives Considered

Quickbooks Point of Sale

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

When we changed the interface of RetailPro was not very friendly.

Switched From

Quickbooks Point of Sale

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

We had multiple stores and we needed the transfer and multi-store management that Lightspeed offers. We were also looking for a point of sale that integrated well with ecommerce.

Pros

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

Cons

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

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale and Clover

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

The setup and Cloudbase of inventory. I can check sells, products, etc. from anywhere.

Pros

- ecom and retail link seamlessly
-open and close cashes easy for staff
-each staff has own login to track sales progress and customers
- can limit staffs access to certain tabs that are irrelevant
-painlessly easy to submit orders, and create new product
-can easily provide quotes for potential customers
-easy to do inventory checks from your cell phone, great for purchasing at trade shows or counting stock in warehouse.

Cons

Cons: -Limited integrated payments
-Limited ways to get content linked to other selling platforms
-Blog
-doesn't do penny rounding for cash sales (canada doesn't use pennies)
- creating a work order- we cannot add or remove tabs that show on work orders
-system crashes during work hours, (bugs in system) approx every 3 months, which means we have to use manual receipts and cash only.

Alternatives Considered

Shopify POS

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

We were looking at a way of integrating our online inventory to our retail, so our inventory can be managed.

Switched From

Shopify POS

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

lightspeed was easier to operate and was primarily pos based, shopify was primarily online based

Pros

Lightspeed is easy and efficient to operate. From training new employees to hectic busy days, Lightspeed reduces human errors and allows our staff and business to achieve their fullest potential.

Cons

As a relatively small business, it would be nice to have different register modes for convenience without purchasing an add on register.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Alternatives Considered

Shopify POS

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

I didnt like dealing with all the apps in Shopify

Switched From

Shopify POS

Reasons for Switching to 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.

Pros

I really appreciate the seamless integration between the POS and the eCommerce. I also really like that this is all web-based, so that a computer can be used for the interface rather than a cash register that will only serve one function. When there is a problem, Lightspeed is usually ahead of me in giving notice that there is one and gives the approximate timing for the fix. Also, if you have both components and the payment processor is down (like at Christmas), you can easily set up the purchase online and your customer can process their goods and walk out of the shop a happy customer.

Cons

It feels like the frameworks for the eCommerce should be a little easier to use, but I've had much less robust platforms. Also, I'm still trying to find a better solution for shipping for the kind of shop that I have, but don't actually blame Lightspeed. It would be great if there were a more integrated and less expensive phone app add-on for shopping.

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale, GoDaddy Website Builder and Shopify

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

I didn't like the platform. It wasn't made for a business like mine.

Switched From

Shopify

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

I needed a robust POS that made it easy to retail the handmade products that we craft in our shop. We often have multiple versions of the same product in regard to scent and quantity. Also, the ability to monitor the inventory for both the brick-and-mortar and the eCommerce portions of our business is invaluable. I have stayed with them, because they didn't stop with their superior customer service after the contracts were signed. It also seems like a system that will grow with us. I chose them, when I was taking my business from a kitchen "cottage" style business to a full time shop with eCommerce. I don't regret it.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Alternatives Considered

Square Point of Sale and Vend

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

RAMCO was not designed for RETAIL or On-line Store

Switched From

Ramco Logistics

Reasons for Switching to 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].

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Pros

The integration with xero accounting has been a true time saver for my business. It transfers all sales data at the end of the day seamlessly so I don't have to. The ability to use the front end off site has been super helpful as well as it doesn't tie me down to the store and I can do a lot of my work on the go. Creating products, invoicing clients, setting up the main screen custom to what I want is extremely simple once you run through it once.

Cons

Theres a few simple features that are missing from the PoS software which I would like to see integrated and would make it hands down the best in the industry for small businesses.
1) Getting an integrated payment terminal that accepts chip, pay pass and swipe options would avoid any mistakes between manually punching in the amounts on the debit/credit machine and would avoid any back end work after the day closes to be able to balance the day
2) Allowing me to enter the details of the invoices (supplier name, invoice number, total amount being paid, gst, pst, etc.) that are being paid out on a daily basis and having that information transferred to xero would alleviate tons of paper work after the close of the day.
3) There is no way to pull out a month end statement for corporate clients that pay their account once a month. Checks have to be cross referenced manually with the bills that have been put on tab. You should be able to at the very least select which tab invoices are being paid from the list of invoices on the clients account. This would show which ones are outstanding at a glance rather than having to refer back to the paper invoices that the system creates.
4) A front facing screen to display pricing of items being charged, advertisements, and other information is something I have been asking for since day 1 (3 years now). And I would love to see this feature incorporated.
5) Having the ability to offer a discount for a bulk purchase is something that should be automatic.

Pros

Looks nice if you spend the time to set it up

Cons

Lightspeed has been a horror for us since the start. What we were presented at during the sales meeting made us very excited and happy, but the second the contract was signed, for our 3 locations everything went down hill. I had to pull teeth and send multiple messages and to get our installation done on time. And even at that they finished doing it opening day, and were debugging while we had to serve clients. And that is a whole other story.

The product itself looks good but really does not work for a restaurant. Little things like having a single client pay without closing the full table is not possible. Servers need to figure out all these ways/trick to speed up service without being slowed down by Lightspeed. Items cannot be sent to multiple locations at ones (if something come from both the kitchen and bar like a Caeser with bacon)

The reports are terrible. Items are split up in ways were the they are split if clients have payed 1/2 or 1/3 of the amount. So items like Natchos that are group type items, to no how many have been sold you need to add the full one, the 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, .... amounts. So extracting any information takes a long time. Many of the reports have numerical errors in them, and as such they cannot be trusted. Also, tyring to export hourly sales or receipts all have wrong times on them (our restaurant closes at 1am, yet it still show receipts until 5am)

It is not possible to use the inventory option in bar because they can only have units, it

Pros

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 $

Cons

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!!!!!!

Alternatives Considered

Clover and Shopify

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

5 years ago it was the best option.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

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

Cons

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!

Pros

The ease of use for my staff is great. We also love the ability to add purchase orders and receive them with ease. Our old system did not have this. I also like that it has great inventory management. We just did a recent inventory count and that went so much easier than in years past. Also, the reporting is overall very good. It gives you a good insight into your data.

Cons

The Ecom side could use a lot of work. I would love to see a better way to do discounts and markdowns. The way it is set up now is very complicated and makes it a lot harder for us retailers to use. For the retail side, I would love to see a green light button on both the email receipt and email purchase order side. Sometimes I click send email but I can't remember if I actually hit send. A Green/red light would be helpful. Lastly, I would love to see a feature that incorporates a discount on items when receiving a purchase order. Currently, there is a box to input the % discount of $ off but it does not get incorporated into the product cost.

Alternatives Considered

Shopify POS, Vend and Heartland Retail

Switched From

Shopify POS, Vend and Heartland Retail

Pros

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.

Cons

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.