Lightspeed Retail POS Review

Pros

• Loyalty program
• Advanced inventory management
• eCommerce integration
• Accepts multiple payment options

Cons

• An expensive monthly cost for smaller businesses

What Is Lightspeed Retail POS?

Lightspeed Retail POS is a hybrid point of sale system designed for multiple types of retailers and boasts a rich feature set, built-in processing, eCommerce integrations, and more. As one of the best POS systems out there, it can handle virtually any retailer’s needs, boasting dozens of integrations that can keep your business on the cutting edge.

Lightspeed Retail Pricing

Since our last update, Lightspeed has raised the prices on plans that do not use Lightspeed Payments, Lightspeed’s in-house payment processor. You will now have to pay an extra $50/month to use a third-party payment processor.

The higher monthly price may even out if you get a good payment processing deal from an integrated third-party processor, but if you don’t have very large sales volumes, we generally recommend sticking with Lightspeed Payments.

Here’s a breakdown of Lightspeed POS costs and packages:

Lightspeed Retail Lean Plan

The LightSpeed Retail Lean plan costs $69/month (billed annually) or $89/month (billed monthly) if you agree to use Lightspeed Payments as your payment processor. The price increases to $119/month (billed annually) or $139/month (billed monthly)if you use a third-party payment processor, such as TSYS or Worldpay.

• Point of sale app
• Barcode scanner app
• Real-time inventory management
• Unlimited users and transactions
• 24/7 support
• Gift card sales
• Multistore support
• API access (to connect your POS to any third-party software you want)

Lightspeed Retail Standard Plan

The LightSpeed Retail Standard plan costs $119/month (billed annually) or $149/month (billed monthly) if you agree to use Lightspeed Payments as your payment processor. The price increases to $169/month (billed annually) or $199/month (billed monthly) if you use a third-party payment processor.

The Standard package includes everything from the Lean plan, plus:

• eCommerce platform
• Integration with your accounting software

Lightspeed Retail Advanced Plan

The LightSpeed Retail Advanced plan costs $199/month (billed annually) or $269/month (billed monthly) if you agree to use Lightspeed Payments as your payment processor. The price increases to $249/month (billed annually) or $319/month (billed monthly) if you use a third-party payment processor.

The Standard package includes everything from the Lean plan, plus:

• In-store and online loyalty rewards
• Advanced analytics
• Serialized inventory

For high-volume and large businesses, Lightspeed Retail offers an Enterprise plan with preferred Lightspeed Payments rates, a dedicated account specialist, premium support, and more. Contact Lightspeed for a custom quote.

If you’re still on the fence about Lightspeed Retail, you can give it a spin with a 14-day free trial.

Lightspeed Retail Extra Costs & Fees

All Lightspeed Retail plans come with one register. Extra POS registers cost $59/month/device.

Lightspeed Retail Features

Lightspeed Retail is loaded with features tailored to retailers. Lightspeed truly offers an all-in-one POS solution with features for your POS system, eCommerce business, inventory management, and much more. Please note that the features available vary based on your selected package.

Lightspeed Retail POS

• Payment Types: All payment types are accepted: cash, credit, debit, check, gift card, and store credit.
• Receipts: You can print and/or email receipts (and gift receipts) with product descriptions and notes.
• Gift Certificates & Gift Cards: Gift certificates/cards also have a barcode for ease of use and can be reused.
• Discounts: The option to apply discounts is readily available through the register.
• Holds & Layaway: You can hold and suspend sales for later or transfer them to another device. You can also place items on hold/layaway for customers to pick up later.
• Customer Loyalty Program: Lightspeed Loyalty allows you to reward your customers online and in-store with its point-based loyalty program.

Lightspeed eCommerce

• Customizable Templates: Lightspeed offers 60 themes and allows you to be creative with your design. It is an extra cost, but having this level of synchronization with your POS system is convenient.
• Appointments: Allow customers to set up appointments directly from your online store. Automatic confirmations and email reminders are also available to help reduce no-shows.
• Wishlists: Your customers can add their favorite items to a wishlist for purchasing later.
• Returns & Exchanges: Simplify returns and exchanges with Lightspeed eCommerce by allowing customers to open a support ticket directly from their profile.
• Shipping Tools: You can organize, edit, and view shipments from the back end, issue tracking codes to customers, and integrate with shipping APIs, such as ShipStation and EasyPost.
• Marketing: Through Lightspeed’s eCommerce platform, you can easily connect your social media accounts to your shop, create an auto-syncing location page, and use Lightspeed’s built-in SEO tools.
• Global Support: You can create your website in up to 14 languages. Multiple currencies are supported, and you can also set up international shipping rates.
• Reports: You can run a number of reports to determine the health of your online business and plan for the future. These include sales reports, order status reports, and conversion reports.

LightSpeed Inventory

• Multistore: Transfer inventory between locations and get full visibility of all inventory from stores and warehouses. You can set different prices for the same SKU on a store-by-store basis.
• Purchase Order Management: You can track vendors, complete POs across multiple vendors and items, and receive or return orders.
• Customizable Tags: Customizable tags allow you to create your own inventory taxonomy for searching for items.
• Item Variations: Your inventory management system allows you to add multiple attribute matrices, assemble items into bundles, and manage items typically bought in bulk but sold individually.

Other Lightspeed POS Features

• Employee Management: There is a basic time clock for employees and a log of employee sales and inventory changes. You can set up customizable roles from within the management area.
• Work Order Management: You can create work/repair orders, track repair progress, and print claim checks and service labels. The labor option also allows you to bill work orders based on time worked. You can schedule appointments for services and turn quotes/orders into invoices/sales too.
• Reporting: There are hundreds of preset printable reports covering everything from profits to the effectiveness of promotions. Customized reports may be filtered by day, week, month, or year.

Is Lightspeed Retail User-Friendly?

There are options available for help setting up your Lightspeed Retail POS system. That said, the front and back ends of the software are both extremely intuitive. The initial setup involves a step-by-step process that includes a catalog of items you can use to populate your inventory.

Everything is where you would expect to find it, and navigating through screens is simple and easy to master with limited training. There’s a high degree of inventory customization, reporting options, and customer tracking, which inevitably lends a certain level of complexity to the software.

However, most POS back ends are naturally a bit complicated, and anyone with a modicum of managerial experience should be able to figure out the system quickly.

Lightspeed Retail Customer Service & Support

Since Lightspeed Retail is priced with a subscription model, premium technical support is part of the service. Lightspeed customer support works to respond to service requests within one business day.

Various kinds of support are available as follows:

• Phone: Phone support is available 24/7.
• Live Chat: Live chat is available from 11 AM-8 PM EST, or you can leave a message with your email address if no one is available.
• Community Forum: A community forum is available through the website.
• Social Media: Lightspeed has several social media pages, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
• Additional Resources: There is a support page with links to resources, the status of the system, release notes, and training videos.

Payment Processing With Lightspeed Retail

Lightspeed offers its own payment processor, Lightspeed Payments. Currently only available in the US and Canada, Lightspeed Payments offers upfront and competitive rates of 2.6% + $0.10 per tapped, inserted, or swiped payment and 2.6% + $0.30 per manual entry. Businesses processing more than $250,000 can request a custom quote.

Unfortunately, you can’t use any existing terminal hardware if you sign up for Lightspeed Payments, but you can purchase a terminal directly from Lightspeed.

There are limited integrations if you opt not to use Lightspeed Payments. Lightspeed integrates with the following:

• 2Accept
• TSYS
• Vantiv (now Worldpay)

If you use an integrated payment processor instead of Lightspeed Payments, you’ll pay an additional $50/month.

Contract Length & Early Termination Fees

You can sign up for Lightspeed Retail on a month-to-month or annual basis. There are substantial early termination fees for canceling long-term plans, so consider signing up for a monthly plan, then converting to a long-term one once you know Lightspeed Retail is the right POS for you.

If you plan to cancel your service, you must contact Lightspeed within 30 days of your next payment term to avoid being charged for another payment cycle.

If you purchase POS hardware from Lightspeed, you must verify that you received it within five business days. If you don’t do this, the equipment is not eligible for Lightspeed’s 30-day warranty (14 days for Apple products).

Lightspeed Retail POS Integrations & Add-Ons

Lightspeed Retail has around 70 integrations. Notable integrations include:

• Accounting: Lightspeed Retail offers a program called Lightspeed Accounting that can integrate with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks for Windows, and Xero.
• Loyalty Rewards: Loyalty program integrations include Loyal2, City Hive, Perkville, AppCard, and Tap Mango.
• Scheduling: Schedule and track employee hours with integrations, such as Agendrix and Homebase.
• Rental: Integrations such as Rental Shop Manager and Bike Rental Manager are offered.
• Inventory Management: Your inventory management needs can be handled with integrations, including Sync2Sell and SkuVault.
• Lightspeed eCom: Not only is Lightspeed eCom a standalone, fully functional, exclusively online POS system, but it now offers integrations with Lightspeed Retail.

Lightspeed Retail Reviews

Negative Lightspeed Retail Reviews & Complaints

When it comes to reviews, Lightspeed customers seem to be split down the middle. Some of the most common complaints across the BBB and review sites include:

• Ignored Customer Requests: Various complaints cite that user feature requests and reports regarding system glitches have been largely ignored.
• Glitches: Some customers report being satisfied with Lightspeed’s customer service responses regarding their complaints but are frustrated when no action seems to come from the developers.
• Learning Curve: A few reviewers found some of Lightspeed’s advanced features to be a bit overwhelming and difficult to master.

Positive Lightspeed Retail Reviews & Testimonials

While there are some negative reviews of Lightspeed Retail, there are many positive reviews across the web to balance things out.

Lightspeed Retail receives a rating of 4/5 (based on 906 reviews) on Software Advice and a 4.0/5 (based on 279 reviews) on G2. Users especially like:

• Customer Service: Many customers are completely satisfied with the level and quality of customer service they receive from Lightspeed Retail, citing short wait times and helpful representatives.
• Ease Of Use: A common thread found throughout most positive comments involves how easy Lightspeed Retail is to use and train staff on.
• Strong Feature Set: Many appreciate that Lightspeed Retail has a large and diverse set of features. Customers like the unlimited and highly customizable inventory feature and the matrix feature that allows you to organize items with multiple variations.
• Fast Setup: Many customers appreciated the personalized setup process and found it easy to train employees even on some of the more complicated aspects of the product.
• Integrations: A few customers loved the choices and the variety of integrations that were available to them.

Final Verdict Of Lightspeed Retail

Lightspeed POS is one of the most robust and easy-to-use solutions in today’s point of sale market. If you’re looking for a system that will likely have every option you could dream up in a POS in both the front and back end, and pricing isn’t a major consideration, Lightspeed Retail should be fairly high on your list.

There are a few downsides, though. Some users have reported system glitches that can be frustrating. The number of features can be overwhelming, and the system can take some time to get used to.

However, the company is committed to updating its system frequently to provide the latest POS advances while offering strong customer service to help you get up and running as quickly and smoothly as possible.

If you’re still on the fence, Lightspeed Retail offers a free trial.

You can also check out some of our top picks in retail POS systems to determine the best option for your business.

Lightspeed Retail FAQs

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Lightspeed Retail POS	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Lightspeed Retail POS for yourself.

The Merchant Maverick Seal of Approval 🏆

Lightspeed Retail POS	Visit Site

After hours of in-depth research and evaluation, we can confidently recommend this brand to our readers. Get started today and see Lightspeed Retail POS for yourself.