Lightspeed Retail

A great all-inclusive system

Kommentarer: Our industry was using a server-based software which was cumbersome and VERY outdated.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

Fordeler:

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.

Ulemper:

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.

Lightspeed Retail - User Friendly & Great Customer Service

Kommentarer: The cost is a bit high in comparison to other retail POS systems. I may have considered an alternate provider based on the cost alone, but we wanted to get our store opened right away, and Lightspeed came very highly rated.
Over and above customer service is so very important, and this alone keeps us on-line. I would recommend Lightspeed to any new user considering them.

Fordeler:

I enjoy using Lightspeed. The features are easy to navigate, learn and train. There is a newsletter that alerts us to new features and interests. We were offered a significant start up discount for the first year, and the terminal was free. Once we set up the system, it has been clear sailing. Any time we have had a question, on-line customer service has been wonderful! We have never not had an issue unresolved. Lightspeed offers capital advances after a certain period of time, based on sales. This could be useful to help with additional expenses as they come along.

Ulemper:

I do not love the monthly fees now that our yearly discounted rate has come to an end. That is really the only thing I dislike about the entire system. I do wish that Lightspeed would partner up with Faire, the wholesale platform we often use, to integrate the inventory and invoicing.

Not The Same Company It Once Was

Kommentarer: We loved Lightspeed and advocated for them in the beginning. The disappointment in their customer service and the system breakages and downtime was devastating to our business. The customer service we received when their system was crashing was the worst customers service I have experienced in any industry. They denied system crashes or feature breakages, for days before acknowledging them. We tolerated alot from them because they used to be so good! But, it started to cost us a lot of lost sales, and when they couldn't process credit cards for days, that was the end...

Fordeler:

Good foundation. Simple to use POS with valuable connected integrations.

Ulemper:

Customer service used to be outstanding. In a few short years, it provided some of the worst customers service I have experience in any industry. I can confidently saw even our basic employees/user understood the system better than ANY of the customer service reps from Lightspeed.

Lightspeed Retail for Gift Shop

Kommentarer: I use Lightspeed every day in the shop I run. It has a great back office feature and connects to the POS system very well. I like how all your reports are in one place and you can easily find the information you need by filtering the reports. Inventory is very easy with Lightspeed.

Fordeler:

I like how easy it is to pull data on Lightspeed Back office and how easy it is to have it communicate to your POS device.

Ulemper:

Connection to the card reader goes in and out frequently and it Lightspeed only works with certain processing companies.

light speed review

Kommentarer: very good, easy to use, learn and very quick to take guests orders, course meals, and send to Kitchen. our restaurant menu is always changing so its easy to add and remove items

Fordeler:

its easy to use and train other servers on, you can colour coordinate and organize items how ever you'd like with drop down tabs

Ulemper:

nothing it worked great for us. I would recommend to anyone

Terrible Service, Outdated Product

Kommentarer: We bought a business that used Lightspeed. On 12/22/23 the previous owner submitted a ticket and sent her rep an email, telling LS that they needed to transfer ownership to us. We were sent paperwork and filled it out immediately as we were closing on 1/1/24. Rep said everything was fine. In 1/2/24 everything was still in previous owners name. I called, gave up after 4 times of waiting for over 20 minutes, put in tickets and emailed our rep. Nothing. A few days and a plethora of calls, emails and online messages later, someone told me the rep gave us the wrong paperwork to fill out. We had to start over. This wasn’t done until 1/16/24, 16 days after we bought the business. But it gets worse! For all that time, all sales went to the previous owners acccount (she still had LS at another business) and all money from sales went to her bank. Again, call after call, ticket after ticket, nothing. Finally after over a month, the previous owner was nice enough to write me a check for the payments she received in error, but to this day, LS still hasn’t figured out how to get the sales that went into the previous owners account, to mine. Almost 60 days! I missed paying my state sales tax because I don’t know how much sales we had. Then to top it all off, I worked on our ecom/website for hundreds of hours. Added just under 4,000 products and descriptions and pictures. We own a retail Christmas store. I’d put a stuffed animal under “Plush” on the website. The next day I’d look and that listing would now be under Christmas Lights. Again to tech support. Turns out there was a syncing issue and they had to delete everything I had done. I have to start over. Redo just under 4,000 products. Put them in the correct categories. Hundreds of hours of more work. They didn’t even apologize. They don’t care.To this day, 2/22/24, the account still shows in the old owners, company name. More tickets, more of nothing getting done. More frustration. Please, please stay away from this company. They are truly horrible.

Fordeler:

Inventory management was easy. The retail system is fairly easy, but the api from retail to ecom is one way, which is a major flaw.

Ulemper:

Their ecom is terrible. Only thing worse than their ecom is their customer service. You can’t call anyone. Tickets take weeks to get worked. Only option is online chat. Try explaining a complex situation in a chat.

Be very cautious

Kommentarer: Very poor and now we are faced with a difficult situation to migrate away from them before the cost rack up. I have since discovered this is simply a hostile tactic to upsell their payment services.

Fordeler:

Appears simple and easy to use, simple to set up and cost effective.

Ulemper:

Be very wary. Lightspeed will take you on to use their epos system but once you have settled in, they will penalise if you do not use their payment services in conjunction. The monthly penalty for not using their payment gateway is huge. Support is limited to non existent and the account manager's primary objective to sell you their services, and if this is not accepted, they will pressurise you to take the services regardless by way of charging you £335 per month as penalty. I would highly recommend you look into other Epos providers before committing to Lightspeed. As you will then be faced with the pressure of moving away from them quickly. Note they only give you 18 days to pay for the penalty invoices before suspending service.

Take Your Money Elsewhere...Total Fail and Misleading Sales

Kommentarer: Lied to so I would purchase $500 in hardware. Then was ghosted when I cancelled and wanted to return hardware. Spent two months trying to make it functional. Finally gave up. Cancelled subscription and then could not get a call back for hardware return. Was told a lot of inaccurate information at sales, just to be told at implementation it would not do those things that were promised.

Fordeler:

Nothing. Wasted my time and energy with false promises of functionality. Total fail. Terrible experience

Ulemper:

Questions I asked at demo: Does it include integrations with Woo and Amazon? Told it did. It does not! Demands additional software to integrate with Woo, Amazon, and Shipstation. Where is support? Told North America. It is not. 4-6 days to get email response. Phone support has no answers, creates email chain.

Basic functions do work

Kommentarer: 2 basic issues that they have not fixed have ruined my experience with what otherwise could have been a good system. Since I started using LS in 2019, when you receive part of a customers special order the system will put it into sellable inventory not reserved for the customer causing many inventory problems. The 2nd issue started in dec 23, I am no longer able to refund a customers purchase and put it back into inventory. A basic function of any POS system, its now march and still not fixed.

Fordeler:

Fast, all online, easy to import and export between excel

Ulemper:

Basic functions simply do not work and have not been fixed after months to years

Do not use for credit card procesding

Kommentarer: 10 years ago it was the best customer service around. Sadly this is no longer the case.

Fordeler:

Ease of use. And CustomerService the way they used to do it.

Ulemper:

Credit Card processing customer service.

Lightspeed

Kommentarer: Bug is casi absent. ist fast and simple. For all of my staff is quick and simple for all operations

Fordeler:

Acces every wherre and the multi-chanel fonction!

Ulemper:

Its realy hard to custom for specifict fonction.

Awesome price with great features

Fordeler:

Sense of ease is amazing and all the additional features you didn't think you needed but definitely would want.

Ulemper:

Only thing we have come across is the accuarcy for your mark up and margin percentage. If you change your default price, MSRP and online price as well as current inventory cost, the margin and mark up are not always accurate. Simple fix, would be to just manual calculate your mark up and margin percentage.

Appalling should not be legal

Kommentarer: Appalled

Fordeler:

Used to like the use abilities of the POS but to be forced to move to their payment processing or pay the fine of almost $7000.00 per year as an ADDITIONAL charge has been a disgraceful decision from them.

Ulemper:

The rip off decision to push existing users to use their high priced payment system.

Worse customer service

Kommentarer: Absolutely awful
In my 20 years in business, I have never met a worse company

Fordeler:

I am a credit card processor that recommended Lightspeed to my clients None of my clients are able to get custom service It’s so bad that I personally been trying to email light speed and call for the last 5 days The only response I got is “how can we help” Once I wrote what I needed , no one ever got back to me I’m going to recommend to all my clients to leave lighspeed I’m even going to buy them new pos systems just not to deal with lighspeed anymore Non of my retail or restaurants were able to get customer service I’m writing this review to help other in their pos decision Please save yourself a lot of headache and not to use this POS system I have nothing to gain by telling you this

Ulemper:

Customer Service is beyond horrible I’ve been calling them and emailing them with no success

Bs money grab don't use this system.

Kommentarer: Terrible

Fordeler:

This was an amazing system until they showed their true colors by forcing me (and others) to pay them $400 more a month if you don't use their payment system. After comparing their prices to my current rates it is cheaper to pay them $400.

Ulemper:

This company has no ethics. They forced their user base to switch to them to do payment processing. They said it made it easier to do it that way. Complete lie. I pull my sales from them to quick ooms them pull my banking from eleven I to quick books. At no time.e does their system need me to use their payment system but they still are foing to charge an extra $400/month if I don't move to their higher rates. One way or another they decided that they needed more of money.

A major detriment to our stores function.

Kommentarer: I wish I didn't buy all the hardware because I have come to hate Lightspeed. Don't expect help getting set up and really long hold time, and useless AI chat it's more like artificial stupidity.

Fordeler:

I'm so angry and annoyed at speed right now that I have nothing positive to say.

Ulemper:

Lightspeed has been high maintenance and extremely picky to set up our account and completely useless in making things function on their end.

Misleading

Kommentarer: The investment on new equipment is extremely expensive. You need to have Apple devices You can't use cheaper alternatives for receipt printers either, you have to invest in the most expensive ones out there. If I knew this from the beginning I wouldn't have waste months trying to set up the system. They should have been open and tell me exactly how much I was going to spend only to start running the business. Even the barcode label printer will only work with an specific brand that costs almost 3 times than a generic. If you are ok with paying 3 times more than every other POS system, then this is your choice.

Fordeler:

It seems to have everything in one solid platform

Ulemper:

This System DOES NOT work with Android which I was never told!

Customizable POS solution

Kommentarer: Overall Lightspeed has been a pleasant experience. Pricing is affordable for small business. Some bug fixes, and added features are slow to come to fruition. Integrated vendor catalogues save a tonne of time.

Fordeler:

Ease of implementation Multi location abilityPortabilityLinks to e-commerce optionAbility to use multiple terminals to access data and input sales/work orders/purchase orders etc over cloud

Ulemper:

Lacking in some reporting function, is available at added costNew fee structure for users not interested in Lightspeed payments

5 1/2 years of disappointment

Kommentarer: For over a year I have had issues with Tip Adjustments applying to checks. Procedure is followed to the letter and the adjustments just " fall off " and some just never get charged to the customer. In short, this means the employees get their tips, the customers believe they left a tip but were not charged and the money is for lack of a better term MISSING at the end of the day for the business. HOURS have been spent trying to work with this company on this issues and the level of customer service is so sub par I was JUST told " I know you'd like a call back but we'd prefer EMAIL and will not be calling regardless of you asking for a call back. I am not a litigious person but this time around I think I am going to turn the 5 years of receipts over to my attorney and sue the pants off these clowns.

Fordeler:

Ease of training - So simple a caveman could use it

Ulemper:

Customer supportPayments not applyingCustomer support

User friendly

Fordeler:

Easy to learn and how integrates with Stayntouch PMS system

Ulemper:

Nothing really

So far so good. I like it.

Fordeler:

Ease of use and easy to track sales. Payment processing is good.

Ulemper:

Nothing of great concern. Good for high sales

Nightmare customer service

Kommentarer: Worst experience ever with any POS company.

Fordeler:

I didn't get to use this product at all so I don't have any pros.

Ulemper:

The agents have no idea what they're talking about. I asked my agent multiple times if this system would work for the loyalty program we have implemented in store and I was told yes every time. So I bought into the system, spend hundreds. They refused to refund me even though it was their fault I bought into a system that would not work for me. Then they told me not to worry about sending back the terminal, because it was a free part of their promotion and now they're trying to tell me I have to pay in full for the terminal. AVOID!

The worst service ever

Kommentarer: Disgraceful would never recommend !

Fordeler:

No positive features! Back office not easy to navigate need to be a computer genius, their txt msg instruction is disgraceful.

Ulemper:

Quick to sign you up, their after sales service is disgraceful !! No prioritise when urgent! Have lost sales due to incompetence. Whole system shut down after an upgrade no apologies! Never get emails or response back from management.

Outstanding for retail stores with pooled inventory

Kommentarer: Greater Inventory Accuracy Numerous Sales Reporting and Analytics Options Customer-friendly ease of doing businessI am aware that there are issues with any system. Overall, I'm satisfied with LightSpeed's service and performance. It is dependable, and despite the few issues I have, I am happy with it.

Fordeler:

A product's ability to be organised under one parent product while having several versions, as in combination and matrix products. Incredibly simple to utilise and instruct to new team members. Many features, including simple refunds and returns.

Ulemper:

Particularly during peak retail seasons, our customer service has occasionally been slower. When needed, customer service can be a touch sparse. reports not downloading has been a problem in the past.

Lightspeed review

Fordeler:

Allows an easy tracking of sales and inventory. Very simple to use and great reporting features for things like daily sales by product.

Ulemper:

Customer support is a little lacking when needed. Have had issues In the past with reports not downloading.