• Detailed reporting & comprehensive inventory management
• Service tickets, scheduling, shipping, & special order functions
• Built-in gift cards & customer house accounts
• Saves tickets, layaways, & pricing quotes
• Optional integrations available
• Helpful supports

Cons

• Not necessarily designed for speed
• Significant system costs
• Additional gateway cost (depending on processor)
• More suitable for preloaded data than on-the-fly adaptability
• Complex, expansive system may turn off merchants seeking simple software

Lightspeed has been in the retail game for awhile now with their high-end Mac POS, LightSpeed Pro. After acquiring MerchantOS, they launched LightSpeed Cloud to compete with smaller tablet Aloha pos help manuals. Well, there's been some rebranding since we last touched on them. After yet another metamorphosis, LightSpeed Pro is now Lightspeed OnSite - and remains otherwise unchanged. LightSpeed Cloud, however, has experienced divergent evolution, culminating in two distinct products: Lightspeed Retail and Lightspeed Restaurant. This particular review is focused on Retail - a powerful tablet system offering a number of high-end options beyond your typical quick serve POS. However Lightspeed Restaurant is a mixture of features from their recently acquired POSiOS system and others from Cloud, which will warrant its own review in the future.

Hardware

The system is built for iPads, but it works equally well through web browser; this arrangement allows merchants using Android tablets or traditional computers to take advantage of a POS market that is largely dominated by iOS devices. All data is synced with LightSpeed’s redundant data centers to ensure security and system uptime. The decentralized configuration allows merchants to access system data and settings from anywhere they have access to the internet — and ensures mobile merchants are not tied to a single location.