Lightspeed Retail

Avantages

Importing spreadsheets and not having to create individual items to prepare for the PO.

Inconvénients

CUSTOMER SERVICE!!! Unless you have a very small company with maybe 2 employees and 30 products, the representatives won't be able to help.

Avantages

Canned reports were good, Intuitive for the most part.

Inconvénients

Very lacking in customer service. Unwillingness to meet specific requirements, dismissive.

Avantages

Help desk , they answer soon but for my case couldn’t help at all , just referred to higher level with no result

Inconvénients

Inventory management , huge inventory deduction with no reason

Avantages

Sounded good when they pitched their product.

Inconvénients

Not intuitiveToo many stupid reductant boxes need to be checked when adding inventory and epically laborNot honest about their company and focusAn absolute waste of time to try and get any tech support. Lightspeed auto increased our rate 300% do to credit card processing Extortion is how they opporate

Avantages

The system itself is wonderful. The invoicing and product management helps us stay organized and keep track of product that has not yet arrived.

Inconvénients

I can't even explain how frustrating their POS app on an ipad is. The app crashes at the worst times. I have a panicked call from an employee multiple times a month. The card processing is slow, which is particularly frustrating at Christmas when we have a line to the door. The bluetooth cc reader is constantly disconnecting or not able to even be found. When we reach out for help we either don't get a reply for days from our rep and I am sent to one specialist after another, no one with a direct explanation on what is happening or why.

Avantages

Accuracy is very important and when I run a report or look at inventory it is correct.

Inconvénients

The sales person told me I would have reports and I did for about 4 months, I was then locked out of the reports and could not pay my suppliers. I had to pay more money per month based on their employees mistake. I went with Lightspeed based on the monthly price. It is not completely what I needed for my store but the price was within my budget. Now I have to pay hundreds more per year so I can run one report to pay my suppliers. Be warned they do not stand behind their employees promises.

Avantages

In my application the thing I like best is the ability to import new items into my system directly from the distributor's catalog, as long as the catalogs are up to date. The master order is good for basic inventory items once you have reorder point set up. I need a web based system and this one is.

Inconvénients

Sorry to say my list is very long for this one.
1. You can not return anything to a vendor....they say they are working on an update so this won't be an issue anymore, however this change has been recommended by users for a very long time and they are just now working on it.
2. If you go to sell something and the system does not see enough in stock, it will magically add enough to your inventory to complete the sale. This does wonders for the accounting side! I don't understand why they will not let you go into negative inventory, but it doesn't.
3. If you sell an item as an each, but buy it as a case, the reorder/master order will not work correctly. For example I buy a case of 200 treats and sell them as an each. If I set my reorder for 1 case when I have 0 cases, I will end up with 200 new in stock and up to 199 from the last case. If I set my reorder point to be 50 (each), and my stock falls to 45 I will now get 5 cases, instead of just 1. This is for anything you buy as a case and sell as an each.
4. Reports...There are a few reports that I need my employees to have access to, but there are many reports I do not want them to have access to. The problem with the software is, it is all or nothing for reports. I can not set it up so they can see the ones that need, without giving them access to ones they should not be seeing.
5. Printing price tags is the biggest headache for me. It is way too long to try to explain, just know if you want to print price tags before you finalize an order this is not the program for you!
6. If there system is down, you are dead in the water. Since April 17th till today July 17th I have experienced 6 outages that ranged from 5 minutes to an hour. Yes that is when customers walk out the door. I am paying for this service and they are costing me money.
7. Random dislikes... No spot for check numbers. Anytime the cash drawer is opened a receipt is printed, and every time a receipt is printed the cash drawer open...even for debit transactions, it will also print 2 copies of every credit card receipt, I have numerous customers that do not want the receipt, so I am just wasting paper. There is no auto fill for customer names or items. There is no warning of duplicate UPC's or Customer names. There is no customer loyalty program or rewards program in the system, I have to pay an outside company in order to give my customers a rewards program.

Avantages

I liked the design of the software and support was very helpful in temporarily solving issues.

Inconvénients

The software. Inventory management tools were non existent. No permanent fixes for the software crashing every day.

Avantages

There are some good features for discounting when buying multiple items (2 for $xx)

Inconvénients

Extremely poor design of software.
Not intuitive.
Funcationality we needed was not available. Some work arounds available but very clunky. Support is very slow. Typically 20 min wait for phone support. Customers will not wait that long to make a purchase.
No app available.
I could go on..

Avantages

It's an easy interface to navigate. Sometimes, the support is friendly. Sometimes, the support is useful.

Inconvénients

It's ok if you're a small boutique, but if you have thousands of SKUs take a pass - Lightspeed can't handle it. It's constantly stalling and and crashing. Support told us we needed new computers. We did that - no improvement and we're out thousands in unnecessary computer upgrades. The support team straight up lies to tell you a feature is coming until you re-sign, then tell you that feature was never being worked on and won't be anytime soon. There are simple things like splitting a receipt into multiple gift receipts (a must for a major retail store selling multiple gifts to one person) that Lightspeed can't do. You have to ring each transaction in separately, upping your checkout time hugely. Every restaurant software on the market can split bills, but for some reason, LS can't. Support is fair at times, surly at others. You can just tell everyone working on it has zero understanding of what a functioning retail store is actually like. If you run a sales report for seasonal products you sold last summer for example, it will include every product you've ever had, whether it's current or not. I could go on for ever.

Avantages

It looks good on the screen, the contrasting colors are easy on the eyes.

Inconvénients

Lack of cross platform synchronization, the database has an inability to retain accurate information, the database deletes saved information, the larger your database gets the less functional the platform becomes, using the system via VPN only compounds any of the other platform related issues, the pre-paid orders will throw your sales reports out of of balance, and the reporting features are never complete.

Avantages

The Customer Support Staff that you talk to from, unfortunately, the only one phone number they have available.

Inconvénients

- Expects customer to use the API if they need any design changes
- Expects the customer to keep track of problems they find and keep having to contact them
- Absolutely no ability to contact any management in any way, shape or form. All emails are the same but are coded in a way that they will go back to them but only if they send you an email directly. If you expect someone in management to contact you but they don't, you're screwed. And since there is only one phone number to use to call, that only gives you the general support staff or Billing. What I have generally found is that Support understands exactly what's going on and understands what you are going through and what needs to be done. It's the second line of defense that who think you're crazy, or the standard comment is that they are aware of the problem and are working on it. However, the problem isn't listed anywhere in the CMS that the customers are allowed to see...which displays only customer requests, not the actual problems that they are working on.

Avantages

Easy to use, access from anywhere, easy to enter items, fairly intuitive, matrix is good for setting up items with various attributes.

Inconvénients

Reporting is very limited!!! Extras are expensive and apparently you'll need them! And the support is the worst. The worst! They'll tell u about downloading items from catalogues or uploading from excel, reality is, its not there and it'll be a ton of work. Oh and if you're buying hardware, they'll negotiate alot. Found out after.
And there's no matrix reporting. So you want to see what you sold of an item or by item, can be done but not easy.

Avantages

I like the fact lightspeed has a Gift card System, but it is not that good.

Inconvénients

Long Hold times when you need them.
Customer Service has to always ask the supervisor, or put in a request.
Customer data base just disappears.

Avantages

It used to work wonderfully well until an upgrade about six months ago.

Inconvénients

There are a number of major bugs with the system when creating a customer order. Essentially, there is a flaw that will not allow certain steps to be taken. One must log out of Lightspeed and then log back in. This can take minutes and something other POS users on other terminals will need to log out to get this to work. Try telling a retail customer who you are trying to serve that you have to restart your system and do this continuously through the day. Sounds like fun? No it isn't. Lightspeed have just now launched a new update - 2015.1.2.0 (r93) and they've even redesigned their logo. Do you think they've fixed this glaring bug? Nope they haven't. It's been 6 months guys.

Avantages

I wish there was any, the customer success team think they are the boss and wont give you time when you need. Paid 4K to buy the product and been month not able to setup a time with them. They think they are my customer.

Inconvénients

Customer service is horrible. they dont have time to listen to you, they want to give service when they think is right time for them.

Avantages

Cloud based, OS agnostic, decent price point. Nice checkout orocess, very easy to use. Seems feature rich at a glance.

Inconvénients

Atrocious downtime. Multiple-hour outages multiple times a month. Lots of lip-service from Lightspeed about how it's fixed or they will fix it, but continues to happen.

No customer loyalty. No auto-matching customers based on name on CC. Bad inventory and ordering handling. No quantity based or margin-based or per-item discounting.