Great integrated system

Lightspeed has been great. We have been using it for over a year and it has met my expectations. Whenever I request help, which isn't that often anymore they are quick to respond.

Pros

The best feature of LIghtspeed is the analytics package. As a senior manager you can spend a lot of time calculating your performance manually in excel. But the Analytics package takes care of all of that. It's easy to see the performance of your inventory, employees and marketing at any time. There are also a lot of apps that work with Lightspeed that make it the most functional POS system I've used. The fact that the ecommerce is integrated as well makes it a great fully integrated system. You could pay a lot more to piece together all the of the systems you need. Or you could spend a huge amount of money creating a custom system.

Cons

There are some small idiosyncrasies like not adjusting sync times for your local time zone. So, yesterday is never accurate you have to wait for the next days sync to get have accurate information. I would also like to be able to have our time management app sync employee time to Lightspeed so we don't have to enter it manually. I've given up on tracking employee hourly performance for this reason. Or if they offered a better time clock management natively that would help. I'd also like them to include the previous year comparisons in their dashboard. And, I'd like to look at seasonal performance rather than just month to month and week to week.

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Our industry was using a server-based software which was cumbersome and VERY outdated.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.

Good Product

The overall experience has been excellent. I am most impressed with the support I have received from Lightspeed. Phone in wait times have been very reasonable at this point. When I have spoken to a tech they have been excellent in understanding my question and providing a solution.... at times working outside the box to create the best result with the conditions present.

Pros

The start up process was easy to follow along. Great tutorial videos and resources to answer the basic questions. Was easy to set up the codes, pricing and inventory organization.

Cons

There was some frustration using matrix's and understanding assemblies. Each business is different obviously... the use of matrix was great at the start but becomes limiting later on for integration to the webstore. Assemblies are cumbersome for automatic ordering.

Worst Business Decision

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.

Not suited for small businesses, Big Box Store Perfect!

Frustrating. Doosync - the migration company, by the way was awesome!

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!