User Reviews Overview

About Lightspeed Retail

Lightspeed Retail is a cloud-based POS solution that is suitable for retailers in industries such as apparel, footwear, bike, jewelry, pet, sporting goods and home decor. The solution offers retailers tools including inventory...

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Feature ratings

Value for Money
4.0
Features
4.0
Ease of Use
4.2
Customer Support
4.1

Browse Lightspeed Retail Reviews

935 of 935 reviews
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Sean
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 29/5/2019

After Two Years - Lightspeed Remains The Best In All Categories

Lightspeed has literally saved us 20-30 hours per week. It connects and communicates well with all of our other systems; including accounting and loyalty platforms.
Their customer and technical support have been extraordinary and have exceeded our expectations. In fact, I think their technical support is the best not just in the point of sale industry but any industry. I find myself wishing other vendors I work with had the same level of support and professionalism.
Lightspeed also listens to their customers; this is evident by requests made in their support area. They actually respond to every request.
As a small business owner, we worry about many things. Lightspeed is not one of them!

Pros

After two other point of sale systems; and after two years using Lightspeed, it is by far the best in all categories.
We had two previous POS systems that fell short in comparison to Lightspeed. Part of our success with Lightspeed is that after two previous point of sale systems; we knew what we really needed and the right questions to ask during the sales process. We submitted specific questions in writing. All of our questions we answered in detail in less than 24-Hours. The sales team knows their products and knew my industry. In fact, most of our distributors catalogs are already pre-loaded into their system.
The transition from our other popular POS was relatively easy, especially in comparison to our previous transition. The Lightspeed team was always there to help and even anticipated needs before I knew them. The inventory system and purchase order system work well.

Cons

The only limitation we have with Lightspeed in related to the fact that we sell a lot of items by weight. This does not create a significant problem for us; but having bulk items accounted for in inventory would be a nice to have. We would love an integrated scale capability. The Lightspeed team was more than willing to help us set up our system to sell bulk items; it works better than another other POS we looked at.

Steve
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 20/1/2021

A great all-inclusive system

Our industry was using a server-based software which was cumbersome and VERY outdated. Switching to Lightspeed has allowed me to more easily fulfil online orders, process transactions remotely, and communicate with our customer base more effectively.

Pros

Integration across POS, eCommerce, Accounting, Data Analytics is excellent. We have been able to increase both sales and efficiency with this system. The accounting feature and its daily export to QuickBooks allows me to spend only a few minutes each day keeping books up to date. It certainly makes year-end a breeze. Lightspeed Analytics is an invaluable resource for forecasting and identifying areas of opportunity. Customer support is available 24/7 and if they aren't able to answer my question immediately, I have received a timely follow-up within a day or two.

Cons

There are some work-arounds that I have implemented. It would be nice to have the option for recurring billing and serial number tracking (not just adding a serial number to an item) as well as a better protocol for backordered items on Purchase Orders.

Alternatives Considered

Rain POS

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

Easy choice. Transitioning from a local server based software to a cloud based system was the first priority. After seeing what else Lightspeed had to offer, I immediately made the change.

Switched From

AIM

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

When I was ready to purchase Rain, the sales team kept putting me off time and time again. If that was indicative of their customer service, I knew it wouldn't be the right fit for me.
Mindi
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
1
Features
1
Ease of Use
2
Customer Support
1

1
Reviewed on 22/7/2023

Connectivity

Pros

Originally, ease of use. Now is not the case.

Cons

We have had Shopkeep/Lightspeed for 9 years. It does not make doing inventory easy at all. We have nothing bur problems with the chip reader/swiper, continuously disconnects. Cannot make sales. Have spent many calls to fix, they make us buy new card readers every time. Also multiple problems with scanners not working! Problem has not been resolved in 9 years! Our other stores using another POS does not have these problems. Looking to switch.

Top Lightspeed Retail Alternatives

Cameron
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
3

4
Reviewed on 1/6/2023

Customizable POS solution

Overall Lightspeed has been a pleasant experience. Pricing is affordable for small business. Some bug fixes, and added features are slow to come to fruition. Integrated vendor catalogues save a tonne of time.

Pros

Ease of implementation Multi location abilityPortabilityLinks to e-commerce optionAbility to use multiple terminals to access data and input sales/work orders/purchase orders etc over cloud

Cons

Lacking in some reporting function, is available at added costNew fee structure for users not interested in Lightspeed payments

Andrew
  • Industry: Apparel & Fashion
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
3
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
5

4
Reviewed on 28/12/2020

Packs some punch among the punchless

We are a 40 year Brick and Mortar AND E-commerce company that carries 1000s of unique skus. Needing a software that is heavier than just the POS is essential. Inventory management and the ability to integrate with E-commerce was a non-negotiable for my next POS.
Lightspeed does have some frequent, mostly minor bugs, it is nice that they constantly update and enhance their program. There often seems to be a disconnect between software designers and the retail experience, but this program bridges the data management needed to go with the point of sale functionality.
Product management has been efficient. Customer service has been very helpful via telephone or chat and are always available which is nice. Even better, the amounts of time to need to contact customer service is minimal. After one year of use, I can say I use this program with confidence and I believe it packs the punch needed to handle scale.

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
Nathan
  • Industry: Sporting Goods
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
3

4
Reviewed on 17/9/2019

Lightspeed is among the best POS platforms for growing businesses

Lightspeed has proven to be an extremely stable POS system for our usage. Downtime has been extremely minimal and Lightspeed support teams are always able to get us back up and running quickly--often before the operating hours of our stores. With the stability of the software and the advanced insights into sales trends, we are able to understand our merchandising and inventory needs at a much more granular level. This ensures that we aren't wasting dollars on excessive inventory that is difficult to sell. We are also able to focus on the operational aspects of the business since the software has been so stable and reliable for us.

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.
Brian
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

4
Reviewed on 15/2/2022

Great User friendly

Great easy to use manage and maintain. Works on almost any tablet phone or cpu.

Pros

Love its ease of use. Cloud based makes taking it on the road to do mobile events a breeze for payment processing and inventory management.

Cons

Could have used a little more help importing our inventory but after I figured it out it was easy to do.

Alternatives Considered

eTailPet and Retail Pro

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

It was expensive to maintain and use and not user friendly customer support was the worst.

Switched From

Retail Pro

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

Ease of use. Products can be searched via product number, skew number, upc or item description.
Miguel
  • Industry: Apparel & Fashion
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1-5 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
1
Features
5
Ease of Use
3
Customer Support
1

4
Reviewed on 20/6/2022

Horrible Customer Service

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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

Alternatives Considered

Epos Now and GoDaddy Website Builder

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

Functionality and features. Retail and E-com in one package.

Response from Lightspeed

Hi Miguel,

Thank you for your feedback. We are sorry to hear that you were less than satisfied with your recent experience with Lightspeed. It is our utmost priority to provide products and services that allow our customers to focus on running their businesses with ease. Someone will be reaching out to you once more to discuss your request further and any next steps.

Thank you,

Lightspeed Commerce

Replied 23/6/2022
Nerissa
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 29/9/2022

Great for Retail

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
Veronika
  • Industry: Restaurants
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
4

5
Reviewed on 5/11/2019

POS for New Restaurant Owners

Never had a system this advanced before. I keep trying to implement more features to benefit the daily running of our restaurant.

Pros

Easy to use and set-up. Customer support is great. You are always talking to a real person and they always answer your questions or solve your problems.

Cons

There have been a few bugs every now and again. I would have liked some more one on one time when setting up our system.

Alternatives Considered

Lavu POS, TouchBistro and Oracle Primavera Cloud

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

The weren't pushy. They let us decide. There was always someone there to talk to. Webinars were great!
Jeanie
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 16/9/2019

7 Years In with Lightspeed

LightSpeed has proved to be a positive addition to our business over and over again.

Pros

The system allows vision into your business clearly and quite simply. From the day to day sales to the back office reports, the system is easy to use. In ALL cases where something is not exactly as you envision it, the customer support team is there to help; they are PHENOMENAL and coming from retail, I do use those words quite carefully. We launched our business with Light Speed Onsite and have since upgraded to Retail. Each and every step of the way, the support team has helped with and gone and above and beyond getting me operating thru, from the simplest to the complex. We have no other point of reference of other POS providers, but many times other they are present at tradeshows. From a personal perspective, hearing the sales pitch (what we assume is the best of the best), LightSpeed provides services and abilities well above the others.

Cons

Unfortunately, price does come in to play. The cost, now knowing the system, is well worth it. However, there are other features that we feel should be included (as commonly seen elsewhere) that must be a "add-on" application from outside providers. Interpretation: add on = added costs. Being a small business, the cost of the POS system is significant enough, add on's are almost impossible to also incur.

Alternatives Considered

QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

Services provided. Easiness of use. Clean appearance.
Donna
  • Industry: Hospitality
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
4

5
Reviewed on 28/10/2020

Easy to build, train and implement

I worked with other POS systems in the past and find Lightspeed much more user friendly than the others. You can build your menu in literally a few hours and the flexibility is amazing! I have not come across a single scenario in the build that isn't already addressed within the system. And the video tutorials are well done, explaining processes step by step,
The technical support team are quick to respond and follow through issues to resolution. I recommended Lightspeed to two colleagues already and will continue to share my positive experiences with others.

Pros

*Ability to build system at any location
*Ease of use
*Well produced self help videos
*Ability to delete mistakes
*Helpful technical support team
*Integration with Cloudbeds

Cons

The end of day closing process is not as clear as it could be

Alternatives Considered

Revel Systems

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

The switch was not within this company, but in my recommendation to use Lightspeed over Revel. Overall easier to build and train others to allow turnkey management of the system once built. I consult with businesses here to build their POS systems and recommend LS every time

Switched From

Revel Systems

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

as above
Justin
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 21/6/2019

Happy Bike Shop Owner

Lightspeed has been great to work with. The training provided after purchase was great. On going customer support has been phenomenal.

Pros

Really like the cloud based flexibility. Also love the syncing ability with most of my main vendors for importing purchase orders.

Cons

Only con is the fear of web being down or my local internet service not working and if that is the case not being able to run my store. This is has never been and actual issue though.

Alternatives Considered

Quickbooks Point of Sale

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

We were growing and needed more stations in our store. The cost and clunkiness to do that with Quickbooks wasn't going to work. Lightspeed has made it really easy and seamless.

Switched From

Quickbooks Point of Sale

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

Cost and the syncing capabilities with vendors in our industry.
dianne
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
1
Features
1
Ease of Use
2
Customer Support
1

1
Reviewed on 14/3/2023

Series X-

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.

Pros

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

Cons

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!

Alternatives Considered

Rain POS, KORONA POS and Shopify

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

We wanted a better product

Reasons for Switching to 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.

Response from Lightspeed

Hi Dianne,

We would like to sincerely apologize for your recent experience, and we are sorry to hear you were less than satisfied with the services received. It is our utmost priority to provide products and services that allow our customers to focus on running their businesses with ease.

If ever you would like to provide more feedback, please don't hesitate to reach our Customer Success Team via email at [email protected].

Thank you,
Lightspeed Commerce

Replied 17/3/2023
Shawn
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 19/2/2020

Best business purchase EVER

After investing in a competing product and being incredibly disapointed, we were faced with a tough decision; do we make the change to lightspeed only a month after investing $$$ that we did not get any value from?
We decided to make the jump and were rewarded with the best upgrade our business has ever seen. This system is very easy to use. We have saved money and become more organized through efficient inventory management. Lightspeed has made our customers happy throughfast and organized checkout and allowed our staff to be the best they can be. Our service department has never been more organized. I feel like it has consolidated multiple areas of management and allowed more time to fucus on business. We re-invested for multi-years and could not ask for more from a POS.

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.

Amanda
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 19/2/2020

Capital City Luggage

We are a retail and repair shop that has 1 location. We were looking at a way of integrating our online inventory to our retail, so our inventory can be managed. There are very few things we would change about this platform. Its nice that as the company develops, they listen to customers needs and make relevant changes based on that. It's almost a 1 stop shop for being able to run a successful business.

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
Shane
  • Industry: Computer Hardware
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 6-12 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 1/10/2019

Lightspeed Retail Changed the way we run out business

We migrated from Lightspeed Onsite to Lightspeed retail nearly a year ago now, and the move has been fantastic. I did a LOT of research before the move to ensure we could take our Onsite Data over. Actually turned out there was some Workorder data that wouldn't migrate, but the upside to move to retail outweighed this by a long way. (As as work around, we simply left LightSpeed Onsite running side by side to Retail, and refer back only occasionally to Onsite. Isn't as big a deal as I thought it would be)

Lightspeed retail is quick and powerful. Inventory management is completely accurate, and keeping track of special orders for customers is a breeze. We used to keep manual systems in place to keep track, but these have been retired.

Customer management is excellent, keeping track of who owes what and what customer has how much on deposit for special orders. Lightspeed retail also integrates easily into our Tyro POS system, making credit card payments easy and accurate, no fear of adding or worse, leaving a zero off of the bill.

Work orders can be colour coded to show where jobs are up to, and we keep all customer notes in the system. With LS retail being cloud based, I can even send a tech out onsite with and iPad and a Mobile Payment device and invoice, take payment and close a job before the tech leave customer site. On top of this, I have integrated a third party application called Service Reign to manage emails to customers post job to glean customer feedback.

Pros

LS Retail is smart, accurate and quick. Inventory management is great, and reporting is comprehensive. This is everything we need to efficiently run our business. Being a cloud based system, we can track the business remotely.

Cons

LS Retail (coming from LS Onsite), can be a little clunky at first, however once you understand the work flow of the system, it all makes sense.

Alternatives Considered

RepairShopr

Reasons for Choosing Lightspeed Retail

LS Retail is more powerful, and is cloud based, meaning no more backups required!

Reasons for Switching to Lightspeed Retail

The Lightspeed Retail platform made more sense
Dave
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
5
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 22/6/2018

Fantastic Inventory Management

We've been open a little over three years. When we first opened, we explored over a dozen Point of Sale systems including Revel, Shopkeep, Vend, Lightspeed Retail, Square, and several others. We decided on Lightspeed, but discovered they didn't have a clear roadmap for Apple Pay, and so we went with our second choice, Shopkeep.

Shopkeep was fantastic for the first year, but as our inventory grew (we carry over 10,000 unique SKUs), it's inventory management features started to feel sluggish, and receiving orders each week started to take a significant amount of time. During our second year, we started reevaluating all the players again, and setup a trial account with Lightspeed Retail.

Certain things seemed counter intuitive at first - if we mistakenly created an item, we couldn't simply delete it, for example. This is because Lightspeed Retail strives to preserve all financial and transactional data; since an item could contain a sales history, it can't be deleted. Instead, it's archived, and can be restored to visibility with the click of a button. Over time, we've come to appreciate this feature, and the sheer amount of data that is provided through the system.

Inventory Counts can be done quickly - grab an iPad and a bar code scanner, and just start scanning items on your slat wall, shelf, or other display area. When you're done, you can review the counts, reconcile them, and get information on shrinkage, etc.

Acquiring product and receiving it is a breeze. We can build our POs in Lightspeed Retail - using trigger points or by simply adding items to an open PO. We can then email that PO directly to our distributor, who processes it. When the items come in, we can quickly receive them either using a barcode scanner, keying in the item counts line by line, or doing a visual confirmation and clicking the "receive everything and do the right thing" buttons. Printing labels with barcodes is a breeze.

What really sets Lightspeed apart is their service. I can honestly say that I have no idea how to setup the label printer on our Lightspeed system, because whenever we install a new laptop or desktop that needs access, I simply chat with Lightspeed support and they remote into our system and do the right thing. When we set our printer up the first time, the print was a little too far to the left for my liking. They tweaked the templates on the fly, with me offering help like "No, a little more to the right" until it was done. They're insanely helpful.

Pros

- Excellent Purchase Order Workflow
- Easy tool to do inventory counts quickly
- (Beta) Import Tool makes it easy to bulk load new items, or update existing ones
- Supports custom fields to add additional information to items (Release Dates, for example)
- Phone and online support is fantastic

Cons

- May seem pricey if you aren't leveraging all the features
- Limited barcode scanner compatibly
- Custom fields are not currently searchable

Rebekah
  • Industry: Retail
  • Review Source
Value for Money
3.5
Features
4.5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

4.5
Reviewed on 12/9/2016

Lightspeed Retail review from retailer

Pros

We have used Lightspeed Retail for over 2 years now for our seasonal retail business as well as a small wholesale operations that includes manufacturing/production. While small scale compared with many POS users, we have unique and demanding needs and have struggled to find a good software interface. Lightspeed has been a solid performer and worked well for us.

We have a wide range of part time employees with various levels of tech savvy and expertise. Lightspeed is intuitive and user-friendly in basic procedure – checkout, returns, applying discounts, holding or suspending sales and adding customers. Lightspeed was on time with EMV-certified terminal support by the October 2015 deadline and has worked well with Cayan.

Adding products is straightforward. We only use the most basic features of purchase orders and inventory management – we do not rely on Lightspeed to generate orders based on stock but those look like useful features for larger operations.

Reporting is comprehensive and makes it easy to track sales and trends and reports are easily exported to Excel.

Customer service has been prompt and when there are long wait times, you have the option to leave your number and receive a return call. Follow through on issues has been good and while there have been challenges, problems are resolved in a timely manner.

For the products we produce, the “build” function works well to create the pieces from parts in inventory.

Cons

The main unresolved issue I have had with Lightspeed is that it rounds the cost of items to two decimal places. We deal in 100s of pieces that are fractions of a cent and therefore simply cannot track costs. All of these items show as have no cost which is extremely problematic and exponentially so when a piece is created from several “no cost” items. I was told almost two years ago that a fix had been requested by many customers and indeed it was listed several times in the “Lightspeed Ideas” but to my knowledge nothing has been done. If this could be fixed, Lightspeed would be an almost perfect POS solution for us!

Also it is spendy. But I guess you get what you pay for.

Amit
  • Industry: Restaurants
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 19/7/2017

Excellent software for growing businesses.

Overall the software is amazing and the good outweighs the bad and a tested about 10 different PoS softwares when I was shopping around and none of them encompass everything I have mentioned so i know my expectations are very high....which is why I state again...if they added in these features it would make them industry leaders and really a phenomenal PoS system. (its 90% of the way there for me...just a few more features and if would be the best)

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.

Chrysie
  • Industry: Sporting Goods
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
4

5
Reviewed on 11/2/2021

Think beyond initial implementation

We are aware that every system has something to complain about. Overall we are happy with performance and support from LightSpeed. It's reliable and with the small amount of problems we have we are pleased.

Pros

It's a relatively easy system to navigate. Permission settings are acceptable. Reporting is decent but all very basic unless you purchase Analytics. We use the software for multiple locations but keep separate inventories at each location. We can easily see inventory at other locations, transfer inventory from store to store effortlessly. Creating inventory items is easy as well as setting up pricing rules. Able to customize receipts, labels, and transfer paperwork with some HTML knowledge. Sales are smooth as well. Split payments are pretty easy and relatively intuitive.

Cons

No really good way to do rentals. We are a tennis shop and rent/demo racquets. We had to come up with our own solution.

B2C eCom is great - and can use the existing inventory; we have it set up as a separate location so we can see all inventory across eCom and retail - until you want to add B2B. It's difficult and expensive to add B2B and have it work the same as eCom. We learned, much later, that we need to have a separate website, a separate database of inventory and we would not have visibility into this inventory from our retail or eCom side. Huge disappointment. The eCom module is not native to LS. They purchased the product and have integrated it into LS - so their APIs won't even allow you to have that visibility.

Support is good for the most part. Simple things, but, holy smokes the printing!!! First, you have to use Firefox to get the printing to work at all. But Firefox constantly loses the printer default settings. So swithching printers throughout the day between labels, transfers, receipts...causes Firefox to throw up allover the printer settings. This happens daily, sometimes several times during the day. It's ridiculous. Support doesn't give a good answer - they tell us to follow the documentation. But that doesn't fix anything. Many times during the day we have to go back into the Firefox configuration and reset the default printer. Painful.

Andrew
  • Industry: Restaurants
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5

5
Reviewed on 18/12/2019

Still love it after 15 months

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.

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.

Clif
  • Industry: Restaurants
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used for 6-12 months
  • Review Source
Value for Money
1
Features
2
Ease of Use
3
Customer Support
1

1
Reviewed on 29/6/2017

This company is all about sales and has no interest in fairness or retaining customers.

I run a tiny seasonal business for which this system was intended. If someone is unhappy with my service, refunding their money is not always my first approach, but if I know that I've fallen short on service, I absolutely look for a fair solution. I was fine with keeping the hardware originally sent to me and even paying for the time lapse on the software, but to say that all software sales are final when they are the one that set the contract lengths to being with is just shady and downright distasteful. It's not like they put money into developing software just for my company. In fact, any time I tried to get support to help tweak things, their support team seemed more annoyed than willing to help. Stay away from these guys.

Pros

I barely used this product. What sold me on it initially were the demos in being able to have a simple interface for my employees on both the retail and restaurant side and a much more detailed backend than square that supposedly integrates nicely with Quickbooks.

Cons

I was very specific about my operating needs. I am also very busy with small children and multiple businesses. The onboarding was described as very simple, and it was not. I needed three systems, and was told that was what I was paying for. They shot me an invoice which I did not read thoroughly enough. They put in fine print on the invoice that the invoice and payment is acceptance or their sales terms which you have to then go to their website to read. Once I asked for the hardware items that they did not send me, they also charged me for a bunch of extra software that were not part of the original sales discussion or even the second sales discussion. They never refunded me for two years of unused software when I decided that I was not interested in doing business with such a shady company. No class.

Response from Lightspeed

Hello Clif,

We would like to apologize for the service experience you had with Lightspeed. It is our utmost priority to provide a product and service that allows our customers to focus on running their businesses with ease.

We appreciate the feedback you have given us on our sales and onboarding processes and will be taking it into account in the future to ensure a better experience for other Lightspeed customers.

In regards to amending your contract, we would again like to apologize for any confusion or miscommunication. We had hoped the offer we presented and discussed in detail would have allowed us to move forward in your relationship with Lightspeed.

Once again, we apologize for your experience and that the decision we reached was not the outcome you desired.

We appreciate your understanding,

Customer Success Team
Lightspeed

Replied 16/10/2017
Zach
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 11–50 Employees
  • Used Daily for 1+ year
  • Review Source
Value for Money
1
Features
1
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
1

1
Reviewed on 17/3/2020

Frequent Outages

Overall, the system provides all that we need. Problem is, we don't know if the system will be online when we need it.

Pros

The system ties together items, sales, customers, and sales staff seamlessly. This allows us to dig in and review product performances like never before. Using the matrix feature makes creating items with multiple sizes, colors, and fits easy.

Cons

The system crashes. These past few months have been especially stressful with our busy season approaching. The following list is made up of days in which we were not able to take payment from customers anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.
Monday March 16, 2020
Wednesday Feb 26, 2020
Saturday Feb 15, 2020
Saturday Feb 1, 2020
Thursday Jan 30, 2020
Saturday Dec 14, 2020
Friday Dec 13, 2020
Friday Dec 6, 2020
Sunday Nov 3, 2019
Monday Sep 30, 2019
Thursday July 18, 2019
Saturday July 13, 2019

We've had an email in, with several followups, to our Lightspeed rep for the reassurance these outages will slow/stop. Unfortunately every email has gone unanswered for over a month now. This lack of communication is very frustrating. We're just waiting for an outage on a weekend during our busy season. Being we are locked into a contract we have no way out but are actively searching for an alternative as to not live in the fear of an outage at any moment.

Lightspeed Payments is another spot to touch on. All told, the switch to Lightspeed Payments would cost our company roughly an extra $7,000/year on top of our current processing costs with Vantiv.

Response from Lightspeed

Hello Zach,

Thank you for your feedback. We would like to sincerely apologize for your recent experience, and we are sorry to hear you were less than satisfied with the product and service received. It is our utmost priority to provide a product and service that allows our customers to focus on running their businesses with ease.We will have someone from our Customer Success Team reach out to you shortly.

Thank you,

Lightspeed POS

Replied 20/3/2020
Verified Reviewer
  • Industry: Retail
  • Company size: 2–10 Employees
  • Used Daily for 2+ years
  • Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
4

5
Reviewed on 14/1/2021

A great system overall

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
935 reviews