Lightspeed offers powerful point-of-sale (POS) systems for the retail and food service industries, with a focus on U.S. retail. Whether you use Lightspeed Delivery for your restaurant or Lightspeed eCom for product sales, you’ll enjoy the same level of detail and functionality. Accounting integration with QuickBooks is just a few clicks away. You can also manage special orders and discounts from your Mac or iPad and include personalized details like branded coupons.
Pros
- Possible product analytics, sales tracking, and employee management.
- No setup fees.
Cons
- High monthly costs.
- Customer complaints about software issues.
Here’s Why Successful Businesses Choose Lightspeed
“We’ve been using Lightspeed since it launched. The company is great at working with small businesses and really cares about them. The software is constantly evolving and seems to be getting better with every update. I recommend it to any small business that wants to be as efficient as possible and is looking for a POS system that can grow with them.”
– Ray’s Bike Shop
“Lightspeed Restaurant is incredibly easy to use and offers excellent customer service and technical support. Lightspeed has a variety of POS format options, which is a huge advantage for any restaurant.”
– Hive Café Solidarity Cooperative
“Lightspeed is like your most important employee. It manages your entire business. Now I can focus on what Exclusivity will look like in 5 or 10 years. I have full confidence that we will continue to expand and grow.”
Exclusivity
Why Go With Lightspeed
Lightspeed is a business management tool for retail and hospitality industries, as well as a powerful point of sale (POS) system. Restaurant POS allows you to create floor plans that match your restaurant’s table layout, control your staff’s access to the system, and create and edit your menu online. You can print orders from anywhere and seamlessly send information from the front desk to the kitchen. Special features for different types of businesses are what make Lightspeed stand out: for example, integrating bar accounts in nightclubs or separating accounts for cafes and restaurants.
What’s On Offer
While some platforms specialize in one area, Lightspeed offers a variety of capabilities for different industries. This means that the available capabilities vary widely, from retail to food service, and even within specific niches within each industry. These include:
Lightspeed Retail.
- Import your products into the online platform with a single click.
- Generate discount codes.
- Update your product data using spreadsheets.
- High-resolution product display.
- Choose from customizable e-commerce templates.
- Create loyalty programs with Lightspeed Loyal.
- Let your customers create wish lists.
- Manage deliveries through your online store’s dashboard.
- Integration with shipping apps like EasyPost and ShipStation.
- Improve your marketing with built-in SEO tools.
- Create newsletters and send email notifications.
- Websites available in up to 14 languages.
- Analyze performance with weekly sales reports.
Lightspeed Retail is ideal for businesses that have a large physical inventory that is sold in bulk. Businesses that sell products by weight (such as candy stores, soda shops, and gas stations) or by partial quantities (such as fabric stores) have been less compatible with Lightspeed, as have resellers (whose products don’t have SKUs) and service businesses (whose products don’t have physical inventory).
Lightspeed Retail typically works best with the following types of businesses:
- Clothing and apparel stores
- Sporting goods and footwear retailers
- Gift, toy and hobby stores
- Vape and tobacco stores
- Liquor stores
- Electronics stores
- Jewelry stores and jewelry repair stores
- Pet stores and pet supply stores
- Home decor and furniture stores
- Any other business that sells physical products in fixed units.
Lightspeed restaurant.
- Create custom menus with photos and descriptions.
- Arrange floor plans so everyone can see them.
- Kitchen display allows you to create visible kitchen floor plans.
- Create custom profiles for staff.
- Process pick-up and delivery orders.
- Access data, menus, and ordering from mobile devices.
- Monitor progress with real-time reporting.
- Create custom staff reports to track hours worked and performance.
- Get a complete picture of sales and cash flow with end-of-day reports.
No matter how you use Lightspeed, you’ll find even more features, including:
- Multiple bidding options.
- Inventory management with extensive customization for individual product/part inventory tracking. You can also group products for group sales and promotions.
- Purchase order management to track suppliers and purchase orders, manage products, handle shipping corrections, and handle customer warranty/return events.
- Employee management with schedules, employee sales, customizable roles, and more.
- CRM functionality for improved engagement with existing customers, churn prevention, customer data management, and more.
- Work order management.
- Versatility for warehouse location and transportation, plus mobile point of sale/kiosk functionality for trade shows.
- Multiple integrations are also available, including QuickBooks, Xero, NimbleSchedule, Booxi, and MailSync or MailChimp.
Lightspeed POS integrations and add-ons include:
- Accounting software
- Loyalty program that integrates with CRM software to track and reward customer behavior.
- Online time tracking for employees, including vacation requests and shift changes.
- E-commerce integration to sync data from your online store across multiple platforms.
- Rental management for businesses that rent equipment like bikes or tools.
- Email marketing with platforms like MailChimp to drive customer engagement and repeat purchases.
More Reasons to Choose Lightspeed
Lightspeed is a cloud-based POS platform hosted on Lightspeed services that automatically syncs across all your devices. If you’re using a computer, you can also access Lightspeed through your web browser. If you prefer to use a mobile phone or tablet, you can download the iOS app on your iPad and use it as a POS terminal.
In both cases, you will need additional hardware to process payments, such as a cash register and printer, as well as a barcode scanner. Since it works in both formats, Lightspeed sells all the peripherals in a bundle if you don’t already have them. This includes the iPad POS Kit (cash register, stand, dockable scanner, receipt printer; iPad not included) or the Desktop POS Kit, which includes a printer, USB scanner, and printer. As with the iPad, you will need your own computer.
Thanks to the web interface, you don’t need to use Apple’s desktop products. This gives you more freedom in your work environment.
Ease of Use
Both the registration interface and management tools are very easy to use. Like many iPad solutions, it has an attractive design and a minimal learning curve. The desktop or iPad app will guide you through the process of adding inventory and managing payments. It also offers a variety of inventory, analytics, and design customization options. The iPhone app is also easy to use, although it doesn’t let you accept payments.
Whether you’re serving tables or managing a long line of customers at a large event, you’ll want your POS system to run smoothly. Lightspeed offers an extremely intuitive and user-friendly design, both on the front and back.
As a primarily web-based app, installation and setup is a simple, step-by-step process guided by a wizard. Management functions are strategically grouped by category in the backend, making it easy to access all the important information, rather than having it hidden in multiple menus.
Both the frontend and backend are easy to press and have clear, concise instructions that explain their function and the flow of the sales process. It’s virtually impossible to get lost in the menus. From product management to employee management, this point of sale platform is easy to customize and use, and it’s also a pleasure to use. Once you get the hang of it, it’ll be a breeze.
What’s Unique About Lightspeed?
Lightspeed includes hundreds of pre-built, printable reports that you can customize by date. Reports are essential to running a business, and Lightspeed does just that. The platform allows you to visualize total revenue or profit margin, track the effectiveness of promotions, schedule and assign tasks to employees, manage cash register closings, and much more. Lightspeed’s advanced reporting features include a variety of customizable widgets so you can create a visual dashboard with the most important elements of your business management. Additionally, any report can be exported to an Excel spreadsheet.
In addition to advanced reporting, it also allows you to sell services alongside physical products. This extends Lightspeed’s use beyond retail to any service-focused environment, such as oil change shops or any other business with service and repair orders.
Customer Support
Lightspeed offers 24/7 support via its toll-free phone number and contact form, as well as live chat. The staff is friendly and knowledgeable, and you’ll get free setup assistance, as well as free updates with all the support you need to learn new features. With secure cloud backup, you’ll never risk losing customer data or critical inventory information.
Pricing (Software and Hardware)
*Prices are based on annual payments. If you choose monthly payments, prices will increase.
All of Lightspeed’s retail plans include a point-of-sale (POS) system with payment terminals, and the benefits start rolling in from the Basic plan. For example, the Basic, Standard, Advanced, and Professional plans include e-commerce capabilities. The three higher-tier plans (Standard, Advanced, and Professional) also include accounting tools, while the higher-tier plans include customer loyalty and analytics tools.
The restaurant POS system is offered at a basic price, although users have the option to add upgrades such as customer displays, advanced reporting, and self-service table menus. Premium add-ons include accounting, loyalty programs, self-service kiosks, and delivery service integrations.
Contract Terms
Lightspeed offers a 14-day free trial so you can test the point-of-sale (POS) system before committing and make sure it’s the right solution for you. After that, you’ll be offered a long-term contract with the lowest monthly rates. The standard term is 14 months. For hardware, Lightspeed offers its own 30-day warranty, which is then extended to the manufacturer’s warranty.
Bottom Line
Lightspeed stands out for its comprehensive capabilities, with systems designed specifically for retail and restaurants, as well as specialized options for subcategories of the food service industry, such as cafes and bars. You can choose your own powerful integrations from over 250 partners and buy complete hardware solutions right away.
If you need an efficient and intuitive interface with high functionality for customer service and the kitchen, Lightspeed is a great choice. However, if you are a small business or startup, it is probably not the most suitable option due to its high price.
