The battle of Shopify POS vs Lightspeed POS could be complicated. Once you’re selecting a brand new level of sale system, each of those instruments have a whole lot of advantages to supply.
On the one hand, Shopify is likely one of the best-known ecommerce platforms on the planet for ecommerce sellers, providing a variety of implausible options for enterprise leaders. Then again, Lightspeed gives an all-in-one answer for all types of firms, whether or not you’re operating a retail retailer, restaurant, or perhaps a service enterprise.
Each of those ecosystems are constructed for the trendy enterprise proprietor, providing entry to performance in an ever-changing and agile world. Right this moment, we’re going to match Lightspeed and Shopify POS, to present you a greater perception into what every can do.
Shopify POS vs Lightspeed POS: An Introduction
Each Shopify and Lightspeed POS have a whole lot of options in widespread. These instruments are each designed to ship extraordinarily versatile characteristic units to firms all through the gross sales panorama.
What’s Shopify POS?
With Shopify, you’re accessing level of sale know-how from one of many better-known manufacturers within the ecommerce world. Shopify is widespread all through the globe for its dedication to delivering extremely versatile instruments to a variety of shops and companies, to allow them to promote conveniently on-line.
The Shopify POS surroundings is simply as versatile because the ecommerce service, with a customized POS terminal, absolutely built-in {hardware}, and entry to limitless instruments for reporting and analytics.
What’s Lightspeed POS?
Lightspeed POS is a widely known ePOS answer, that means it focuses particularly on the software program aspect of the purpose of sale surroundings. With Lightspeed, you’ll be able to handle a number of techniques in a single surroundings, and entry specialist options like “Lightspeed Supply” to hook up with platforms like Deliveroo and UberEats.
Shopify vs Lightspeed: Professionals and Cons
Whereas each Shopify and Lightspeed POS have their very own distinctive strengths, it’s essential to contemplate the professionals and cons of every platform earlier than making a call.
Shopify POS gives seamless integration with Shopify’s ecommerce platform, that means you’ll be able to handle every little thing in a single place. It’s additionally extremely customizable, with a variety of add-ons out there. Nonetheless, it will not be the very best match for bigger companies that require superior stock administration.
Then again, Lightspeed POS gives sturdy options for stock administration and reporting. It’s additionally designed to satisfy the wants of varied industries, making it an excellent all-in-one answer.
Each Shopify and Lightspeed POS provide dependable customer support, with 24/7 help out there to customers. Shopify gives help by means of e mail, cellphone and reside chat, whereas Lightspeed gives related buyer help channels, plus entry to a group discussion board the place customers can ask and reply questions.
In the end, the selection between Shopify POS and Lightspeed POS relies on your small business wants and objectives. Take a while to guage the professionals and cons of each choices earlier than making a call that most accurately fits your small business.
Retailer Administration Software program from Shopify and Lightspeed
There’s a good quantity of overlap between the options of Shopify and Lightspeed POS. Each instruments can provide every little thing from in-depth reporting and workers administration, to stock monitoring. Each of those options are additionally extra targeted on the digital world.
Omnichannel promoting
Shopify POS permits enterprise homeowners to take their Shopify retailer into the true world with a number of helpful options. The versatile retail POS can combine with a variety of highly effective {hardware} choices, together with easy and moveable Shopify card readers.
With Lightspeed POS, you’ll be able to handle a number of techniques remotely and on-the-move, with an intuitive vary of contemporary software program instruments. Nonetheless, the Lightspeed surroundings particularly focuses on a number of set industries, whereas Shopify is extra versatile.
With each Lightspeed and Shopify, you get entry to a strong POS terminal. Shopify lets you personalize your level of sale in accordance with your small business wants, with entry to your entire most-used apps, reductions, and merchandise in a single place.
With Lightspeed, you’ll be able to entry your entire options remotely from an iPad or cell gadget, to maintain monitor of efficiency wherever you go.
With Shopify, you’ll be able to handle and fulfil pickup orders immediately, purchase in retailer and ship to buyer, purchase on-line, change and return in retailer, and entry native supply options. You’ll be able to ship carts to prospects to allow them to purchase merchandise on-line, and there’s even the choice to connect QR codes to merchandise.
Lightspeed gives specialist instruments like Lightspeed ecom that can assist you attain extra prospects on-line, whereas Lightspeed supply connects you to numerous on-line supply platforms like UberEats, JustEat, and Deliveroo.
Stock and workers administration
From a listing administration perspective, Shopify ensures you’ll be able to create buy orders for suppliers and distributors, and entry demand forecasting based mostly on seasonality and efficiency. You’ll be able to request transfers from different POS areas, preserve monitor low inventory, and uncover sale merchandise options too.
Commercial
Shopify’s ecosystem comes with in-depth stock evaluation, inventory changes, stock counts, and stock receiving counts. Detailed stock reviews additionally can help you monitor traits and confidently plan for the long run.
With Lightspeed, you get a wise stock administration monitoring system the place you’ll be able to import inventory from each location and set up shipments from an ecommerce again workplace. There’s additionally the choice to sync stock throughout all areas, and centralize buying with built-in buy orders.
For employees administration, Shopify has quite a bit to supply too. Employees administration instruments embrace supervisor approvals, limitless POS workers, and entry to numerous roles and permissions. You’ll be able to attribute gross sales to workers members, give workers POS PINs, and monitor worker efficiency.
With Lightspeed POS, you’ll be able to handle a number of techniques from an all-in-one surroundings, and preserve monitor of workers wherever they’re.
Buyer administration
From a buyer administration perspective, each instruments permit entry to a variety of options designed to show your prospects into lifelong followers.
With Shopify, you’ll be able to create complete buyer profiles, which you’ll entry when prospects are trying out on-line or offline. The wealthy buyer profiles assist you to to trace contact info, buy historical past, lifetime spending habits, and extra. You’ll even have entry to instruments for reaching out to your prospects by means of your level of sale.
You’ll be able to reward loyalty on-line or in-store, and arrange advertising and marketing campaigns to enhance your probabilities of repeat purchases.
Whereas Lightspeed doesn’t have the identical lead nurturing options as Shopify, it nonetheless lets you monitor buyer info, and arrange loyalty methods, with customized present playing cards. You can too separate prospects into completely different segments to create extra personalised gross sales campaigns.
Fee Processing
In terms of fee processing, each Shopify POS and Lightspeed POS provide safe and dependable bank card fee choices for your small business.
Shopify gives its personal fee gateway, Shopify Funds, which has aggressive charges and integrates seamlessly with the platform.
Lightspeed POS additionally gives a variety of fee processing choices, together with integrations with widespread gateways like Stripe and PayPal.
When it comes to transaction charges, Shopify costs a flat fee per transaction whereas Lightspeed costs a proportion charge based mostly on the transaction quantity. Nonetheless, Lightspeed does provide decrease charges for top quantity companies.
In terms of selecting between Shopify POS and Lightspeed POS, one issue to contemplate is the cardboard reader. Shopify gives a faucet & chip card reader for $49, together with different equipment like a dock and retail stand. Lightspeed additionally features a card reader of their pricing plans. Relying on your small business wants, the price of extra registers might fluctuate for each platforms. It’s essential to weigh the professionals and cons of every system earlier than making a call on which one to go along with.
Each Shopify and Lightspeed POS provide nice options for managing your in-store and on-line gross sales. Nonetheless, Shopify stands out for its excellent ecommerce and on-line gross sales options, making it an excellent alternative for companies that closely depend on on-line gross sales. Then again, Lightspeed is understood for its robust stock administration instruments and buyer help. In the end, the correct alternative relies on the precise wants of your small business.
Checkout and Reporting
For checkout and reporting, each Shopify and Lightspeed have loads of nice options.
On the Shopify Checkout web page, you’ll be able to change previous purchases from any on-line or retail areas, and save and retrieve carts for purchasers. You’ll be able to customized print receipts along with your web site URL, promotions, retailer hours, and insurance policies too.
With the Checkout service, you’ll be able to take your smartphone or pill to your buyer, entry customizable good grids to ship cues to workers, and provide low cost codes. Taxes are mechanically calculated in accordance with your retailer’s location, and you’ll file order notes too.
Shopify helps offline money transactions, returns, customized reductions, and barcode scanning.
Lightspeed gives contactless, straightforward funds to swimsuit a variety of retail and restaurant areas. The fully-integrated system helps to guard companies from fraud and human error, and there’s entry to paperless receipts immediately delivered to your e mail deal with.
Lightspeed retail’s ecosystem is absolutely PCI compliant, and filled with options to strengthen your connection along with your prospects, together with present playing cards and voucher codes.
From a reporting perspective, Lightspeed lets you examine on gross sales, traits, and earnings with immersive income reviews. You’ll be able to monitor prices and margins throughout a number of areas directly, entry templates for stock reviews, and examine worker efficiency on elements like items per sale, and work orders. There’s additionally “Lightspeed analytics” for added customized reporting.
With Shopify, there’s entry to each day gross sales reviews, so you may make extra knowledgeable choices about your digital panorama, with insights into merchandise, gross sales, and workers efficiency, all compiled in a each day report generated immediately from the POS.
Shopify gives customized dashboard overviews, retail gross sales reviews, money monitoring, and complete money circulation reviews. You will get insights into which merchandise are promoting finest, leverage low cost and stock reviews, and generate in-depth insights into your funds too.
{Hardware}
Each Shopify and Lightspeed are extra targeted on the software program aspect of promoting than the {hardware} you’d usually use for an offline level of sale. Nonetheless, that doesn’t imply you’ll be able to’t entry {hardware} instruments from each distributors.
Lightspeed’s most important answer for {hardware} is the iPad {hardware} equipment, which comes with a money drawer, LAN receipt printer, iPad stand, Bluetooth scanner, and receipt paper. This lets you merely use your iPad as the first system for managing your level of sale.
In order for you one thing just a little extra conventional, the desktop {hardware} equipment comes with a USB receipt printer, money drawer, and USB scanner. Alternatively, you’ll be able to entry third-party instruments as equipment, just like the Zebra label printer, Bluetooth barcode scanners, and extra.
Shopify’s {hardware} additionally covers a variety of choices. There’s a Shopify retail bundle with every little thing you must settle for faucet and chip funds immediately. In order for you one thing just a little easier, the WisePad 3 reader lets you settle for funds rapidly and simply anyplace.
Shopify’s ironmongery shop additionally gives entry to a variety of equipment, together with barcode scanners, receipt printers, and instruments for utilizing your iPad as your major level of sale. You’ll be able to attain out to each firms for a complete perception into pricing.
Pricing
Pricing is at all times a major consideration or any enterprise investing in new know-how. With Shopify and Lightspeed, there are a number of completely different choices relying on what you want.
Shopify POS Pricing
Beginning with Shopify, to entry the POS system, you’ll want a Shopify ecommerce plan. Normally, choices begin with Shopify Lite, which lets you add a retailer to an present website with a button. Nonetheless, you’ll want at the very least the Fundamental plan from Shopify to start out utilizing Shopify options. Your choices embrace:
- Fundamental Shopify: The Fundamental plan is $25 monthly with entry to help for limitless merchandise, a number of gross sales channels, and transaction charges beginning at 1.7%.
- Shopify: The usual Shopify plan is $69 monthly for all of the Fundamental options, plus native fee strategies, customary reviews, and 5 stock areas. Right here, transaction charges begin at 1.6% as an alternative.
- Shopify Superior: The Superior Shopify service is $259 monthly for all of the options of the usual plan, plus ecommerce automations, third-party delivery charges and superior reviews. You’ll have entry to fifteen workers accounts and eight areas, and transaction charges beginning at 1.5%.
Shopify Plus, which is the superior enterprise bundle, comes with entry to Shopify POS Professional. The remainder of the packages include free POS Lite. The Professional bundle is on the market with all packages exterior of Plus for $89 monthly with entry to extra stock administration instruments, workflows and workers permissions.
Lightspeed POS Pricing
Lightspeed pricing relies on whether or not you’re looking for Lightspeed “Retail”, or “Lightspeed Restaurant.”. Each choices provide entry to particular instruments, both for retail or meals service promoting. Within the retail class, choices embrace:
- Fundamental: £69 monthly for the essential retail ecommerce POS with stock and customary reporting instruments.
- Normal: £99 monthly for the retail ePOS, and ecommerce performance.
- Superior: £129 monthly for all of the options of Normal, plus Loyalty capabilities.
- Professional: £199 monthly for all of the options of Superior, plus in-depth analytics.
Restaurant POS options begin at £39 monthly for the necessities, together with a menu supervisor, cell entry, takeaway, reporting and analytics. You’ll be able to entry this characteristic as an add-on on your present level of sale answer.
Curiously, Lightspeed additionally has a devoted “Golf” bundle, the place you’ll be able to entry occasion administration, a Tee-sheet, enterprise intelligence, and on-line reserving, amongst different options. This service is obtainable with a personalized quote.
FAQs
Shopify POS vs Lightspeed POS: Verdict
In the end, when you’re searching for a strong strategy to promote to prospects each offline and on-line, it’s laborious to go improper with both Shopify or Lightspeed POS.
Shopify is an unimaginable device for constructing immersive on-line retailer experiences. The versatile ecosystem is nice for offline promoting too, with tons of options that can assist you strengthen your relationship with prospects. Shopify empowers implausible omnichannel gross sales and advertising and marketing methods, with a whole bunch of integrations out there to your favourite instruments.
Lightspeed additionally gives implausible omnichannel methods for gross sales, however the firm focuses extra on particular varieties of firm. The retail answer from Lightspeed is superb, but it surely significantly shines in terms of providing customized restaurant options. Lightspeed can also be one of many few POS options in the marketplace that has it’s personal {golfing} options.
In the end, whether or not Shopify or Lightspeed is best for you will depend upon the sort of prospects you most wish to join with.
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