Lightspeed Retail is a retail PoS system from Lightspeed headquartered in Quebec. Core retail POS features are expanded on higher service tiers with ecommerce option and payments gateway, an accounting system, and a customer loyalty program.
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Square for Retail
Score 7.0 out of 10
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Square for Retail bundles payment process and point of sale (PoS), as well as vendor and inventory management features, for small retailers. A free trial is available.
It is perfect for any small business looking for inventory control, Tracking purchase history, and just an all round easy to use software for retail and beyond. I would not use it if I have only a few hundred items or was a larger company that can afford to build my own POS software.
Square for retail is great to use alongside WooCommerce to accept credit card payments on your e-commerce website.
Square for Retail works with a very easy to use card scanner that works with your phone, so it is great if you are selling items at an event like a conference, a farmers market, or an art fair. It is very easy and useful for the small business person who wants easy credit card processing either in person or online.
They have not had major updates to their system in years. The inventory system is stagnant. Although their inventory system is robust, it is outdated.
They do have 24-hour support, however, wait times are excessive and representatives have challenges understanding your issues.
Trying to get issues resolved can take months or never at all. Management is non-existent. Trying to reach a supervisor is impossible.
They have a culture of telling you what you want to hear but have no intentions of actually following through.
Lightspeed is a great solution if you are a small business just getting started. But if you are intending to grow and expand, Lightspeed will become detrimental to your growth.
The reporting/analytics is basic at best. They do offer paid options that are very expensive, but it is very robust. The basic reporting is very minimal.
This may just be me, but I want some additional customizations for our biggest annual fundraiser, so that we can differentiate between donations, chance drawings, etc.
I gave the rating of a 9 because ninety percent of the time when I talk to their support they're very helpful. One of the only real issues I have is there are times where the queue will be 7-9 people deep. When you have an error you don't know how to fix, sometimes this is very troubling. But overall their support is usually quick and friendly.
We used Microsoft Retail Management System before this and this was in a whole other league of its own with features and ease of use. I really like using Macs also. They are much more reliable and longer lasting than IBM or Similar computers. The cloud based system is great also so you do not have to have another unit to store you database on
Square for Retail offers just about everything that the competitors offered, and does so with a more attractive, all-inclusive package. We chose Square for Retail due to the myriad of plugins available, from Dashboard to Appointments, to Estimates and Invoicing, Square for Retail provides just about everything we could hope for, with a predictable, and reasonable bill attached. From the predictability of our period's processing fees to the flexibility of the software and all of [its] possible plugins, Square for Retail was the obvious winner.
