Lightspeed eCommerce

Avantages

When I was in the market for an Ecom platform for my retail business urgently since the pandemic closed our doors to the public, I was so pleased to find that Lightspeed offered great templates that could be customized and loaded for a great professional and appealing website in half the time it would have taken me to have one built and launched. I am happy to say we just celebrated our year anniversary and are very pleased with the ease and income it has generated so far. We are a longstanding family business since 1978 and creating an Ecom presence was something we were looking to expand with. Our clients constantly compliment our Website and even go as far as browse the pages and styles they like to then come by and try on their choices.
Lightspeed Ecommerce perfectly complimented our Lightspeed POS system.

Inconvénients

I had some small issues in regards to content loading and where the content would show up on the platform template but a quick call to support would resolve the matter and they even offered to walk me through the process so I could resolve the matter should it be needed in the future.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi passer à Lightspeed eCommerce

Avantages

My client was looking for one POS solution for his two brick-and-mortar stores and an existing Ecommerce website. We looked at many companies and without reservation recommended Lightspeed.

Inconvénients

None. We have not found anything we don't like about Lightspeed.

Avantages

They answer their support line within a few minutes.

Inconvénients

I've been using the restaurant POS because it interfaces with another system for our hotel. I was never really thrilled with the product but now words are failing me.
I tried to purchase a remote terminal for my restaurant system. It has been 10 weeks of nearly daily interactions and frustration and not only do I not have a working mobile terminal; my existing system is down as well.

Avantages

Its an online based eCommerce. Over the last 10 years it has been a satisfactory product however when initiating it it took awhile to implement effectively for a shoe store.

Inconvénients

We have been lightspeed customers for 10 years. We are coming up on our renewal. We have been nothing short of harassed by Ariel our account manager to use their credit card processing system. We have been using lightspeed without Lightspeeds processor and all of a sudden we are now "required" to use their credit card processor or we will be penalized and a percentage of our sales would go to Lightspeed for not using their processor. This all came from our account manager. We contacted Lightspeed yesterday and informed by the billing department that is not necessarily true. We asked for a new account manager and they keep wanting to put us with the same account manager who gave us false information. All we want to do is sign up for another year and it seems very difficult to do so. I don't understand how 10 years of using their system and they are so easy to brush this off.

Avantages

The robust features that tie together inventory and customer history are great. We can quickly find the status of a job and located special orders for the customer. The software has tons of features that are customizable in just about anyway you can think of.

Inconvénients

Sometimes processing new sales on an existing account that has special orders in progress can get confusing. You have to pay close attention to several important details on two different screens.

Avantages

There is nothing to like about this POS solution for restaurants.

Inconvénients

There is nothing good about this software. Lightspeed's sales pitch misleads and is not what you get, so much so that we had to cancel our subscription to minimize the damage this software has already caused. Furthermore, they send you the hardware with the promise that you can talk to their support and have it up and running, which is simply not true. I spent over $1000 on hiring a computer person with 30 years of experience, and even after the program was up and running, I made unlimited phone calls to support. Customer service is slow to respond. Despite this, the sales person did not bring it up during the meeting. Lightspeed fails this test because we chose our POS system based on it's guaranteed excellent support. One more reason for switching to Lightspeed was its credit card integration offered by the sales person. But it not only didn't work, it was downright horrible. We ended up removing the integration and went back to standalone. Continuing with the next promise, a seamless integration with our third-party delivery application. The integration was such a disaster that we had to cancel it to minimize the damage it had already done to our delivery rating. They have an OrderAhead (online portal) that falls short. It's terrible. Hence, we returned to our own online platform. Our end result is that I now have to pay close to $300 per month for a POS system, when I previously paid nothing for software that offered the ease of use functionality.

Avantages

Nothing I never used their service the guy charged me then disappeared

Inconvénients

I was ignored until I canceled then I received a ride email about how he could no longer help me

Avantages

If it ever gets going, it should link my brick n mortar location inventory. The cost was also a plus as it fits small business's without huge amounts of cashflow. NCR wanted $6k a month and they only have 100 registers as a lowest sales pitch.

Inconvénients

When you start lightspeed for your brick n mortar, its a LONG process. I have over 490 items that I had to create catagories and sub catagories. Took me 4 - 8 hour days! Then you have to create a part name, price schedule, internet price and more. (another 4 - 8 hours days) When I finally got it done, it's super easy to use. Then when I wanted to do the e-commerce part, what a pain! Instead of going though your own payment processor like Square, they want you to use lightspeed. (A little better price, but not much) Anyways, in order to use payments online even though you have been approved to use it on your brick n mortar, they want you to jump hoop after hoop. You have to have policies on your website that don't purtain to your business, they want you to put in disclaimers, general terms and conditions, disclaimer, and other stuff that godaddy NEVER required to take online payments. Godaddy allows me to use anyone I want ofr payments with ZERO hoops. Still after my "uneeded" content was done, I still havent used them yet. Doing the otehr side for ecommrce has taken me 2 x's as long do get this up and still not running. Free webpages are only built to sell jewelry or shoes, not industrial parts. IF this ever gets off the ground, it supposedly will link with my retail/ecommerce and even ebay (through a 3rd party provider of course (more $$))

Avantages

Has many features but the best one is they can go up on your monthly bill and not a dang thing you can do about it!

Inconvénients

After being in contract with them for 3 months they doubled my rate, when I called to cancel they told me I was stuck in it for 12 months regardless if they continually go up or not. I reported them to Quebec Consumer Affairs and only then could they miraculously cancel my contract.

Avantages

Easy to use to manage stock availability, check sku and able to create custom sku

Inconvénients

Image of the product sometimes won't show for some reason.
Other than that yearly is about $1600, abit pricey for the software

Avantages

Het gebruiksgemak, productbeheer, voorraadbeheer, klantbeheer en de verschillende marketingmogelijkheden die het biedt.

Inconvénients

Ondanks dat het programma enorm gebruiksvriendelijk is moet je voor bepaalde marketingdoeleinden onnodig lang zoeken

Avantages

We have been using eCom for about a month now and it has been a great experience. From the customer service to the software itself, it is pretty straightforward and just works. Whenever a question or issue arises, I don't hesitate to call customer support as I know that there will be an answer or solution. The nice thing I like about calling them is that if there is a few people ahead of me in the queue, I have the option of leaving my number and having one of them call me so I don't have to waste time waiting on the phone. When it comes to using eCom, it isn't difficult to learn at all and is pretty painless to use. I like that I can customize everything about the website's theme, right down to the code, to suit my needs. I also like that I can add notes to customers' orders as this lets me keep track of issues in a more secure place rather than pen and paper. Overall, I would definitely recommend eCom to anyone who wants a simple, painless, easy-to-use program to manage their website.

Inconvénients

The only con I've ran into is that if there is a problem with a designed theme, a ticket has to be placed on it and we have to wait to hear back from the developer of that particular theme. Luckily, I have knowledge of web development and was able to fix it on my own as they allow for that.

Avantages

Once I figured out how to use it, it's very simple and easy to find things. IF you can't, they are available 24/7 via phone and you always get a live person!

Inconvénients

They do have a little glitch in the customer account profile, but that is being addressed

Avantages

Very customizable with a wealth of themes and plugins. API support for Shipstation, which we use every day. Customizable statuses for orders which customers can see by logging into their accounts.

Inconvénients

No easy way to communicate with customers about their purchases through the application (you can send an email through the app, but all communication then goes through external email. Also, once the message is sent, you can't view what you just sent.)

Avantages

This software can do 9 of 10 things in every every of my business. Great inventory management (10 out of 10), great sales( 9 out of 10), and great standard reporting(8 out of 10).

Inconvénients

Inventory will not go to negative on hand, gift cards do not work online, and no bin location for each product.

Avantages

Lightspeed is easy to setup and use. Its cloud version is great for managing multiple retail locations, allowing for transfers between locations. You can download a full lists of your products on Lightspeed. Easy to use and intuitive.

Inconvénients

The biggest drawback we ran into with using Lightspeed is that it does not allow you to upload your inventory quantities. We use an external system to track inventory and it's frustrating not to be able to use a csv to upload inventory. The only we to update inventory is through doing a full physical inventory count, which we only do twice a year.

Avantages

The reporting features are some of my most useful tools in the software.
Tech support is really good, when needed
Our non-tech savvy staff is able to use it effectively

Inconvénients

The label feature only works with 2" labels or smaller
Grouping items such as furniture sets is a multi-step process that can be time-consuming at checkout.

Avantages

Accurate reporting and a more thorough online presence.
Ease of transfer of data over and in setting up new products
Quick to respond technical support team
ADDED - the support staff integrated payment processing and their Genius terminal.

Inconvénients

No offline availability. If internet is down, you can't do anything.
No automatic notice of duplicate customer names.
No automatic account creation of customer names with credit card payments.
Unable to add single item on multiple item sale to special order.

Avantages

The interface is incredibly easy to utilize. Loading products and walking through a sales process is simple.

Inconvénients

The lack of integration between lightspeed and other inventory tools can be frustrating at times, but there are workarounds. Customer service is not the best - response times are lacking.