Lightspeed Retail – How Can It Benefit Your Business?

Lightspeed Retail operates on a cloud-based system that offers solutions to retailers to ensure they run their operations seamlessly. It works best for those in the retail industry who deal with products such as apparel, home décor, and for those who love pets. If your field is jewelry or bikes or if your passion is in giving sporting solutions, the Retail POS is what you need to consider for your success.

Lightspeed Retail POS will help you to get an in-depth analysis of your retailing business data. It will help you to manage your customers and your employees without a fuss.

Do you have stores in different locations? Lightspeed Retail comes in handy to give you a Multi-Store feature that allows you to sync your business data across the stations. The Retail POS automates business data for your view in real-time. You will, therefore, be able to tell the progress of your store from anywhere.

Lightspeed Retail POS Features

Lightspeed Retail POS has advanced features that come in handy to give you a luxurious experience with your system. The POS will also cause you to delight your customers by serving them quickly and efficiently.

Some of the features include:

Simplified Inventory Management

Lightspeed Retail facilitates your stock to move swiftly. If you have stock that needs multiple variations, the POS will come in handy to manage your serialized or bundled products. The feature also allows you to add color, size, and size categories to your product so that you have relevant labels on the items.

The Import Items feature allows you to use an Excel file or CSV to move data from a different platform to where you need it. Before you can use the inventory management feature with POS, you need to move all your product information to the POS system. The product information you will populate will include the name of the item and its retail and wholesale price breakdown. You will also include the product description and information about the vendor and the manufacturer.

When you need to add your products to the Lightspeed POS, there are three ways to do it:

  1. Products from a Database

When you need to move data from a database, all you need is to email Lightspeed with your product information. The experts will help transfer the data. Lightspeed will give you a spreadsheet format for you to use in populating your product description. At first, it will take a bit of work from your end. However, in the end, it will save you from entering data manually in the future.

The formatting will specify the headings you will use and a format to follow. The rest of the work to import the data will be in the care of Lightspeed experts. Lightspeed Retail POS will also import your customer information and vendor data without losing any critical information. You will have an excellent platform for your business operations.

  1. Products from a Catalog

When running a business, you have vendors you prefer to buy from, and you would need their contacts to keep purchasing. Lightspeed will scan the catalogs from your vendors and upload them to the system. Lightspeed also ensures that all Lightspeed users can view the details. It is possible to find your vendor’s catalog on the network.

  1. Adding Products Manually

Lightspeed gives you the chance to input data manually to the system. You will need the feature when you start using Lightspeed POS for the first time. Later on, you will only use the tool to input one or two product descriptions. You can also add items in a product matrix so that you quickly categorize the inventory in various groups. The classes may focus on sizes and colors to help differentiate what is available in the store.

Getting Started With Retail POS

When you subscribe to the POS, you will be excited about the new journey you have started. It is also likely that you will feel confused about all the information you will gather before starting. You do not need to get overwhelmed.

Lightspeed POS commits to ensuring that you start the journey on the right note.

You may be wondering what your first step with the new POS is or what you need to accord priority. That is why Lightspeed POS takes time with each of its users to go through an onboarding session to acquaint you with the new platform.

Once you get on board with Lightspeed POS, you may be excited and eager to take some steps, for example, product creation. However, do not rush into anything yet; you will need guidance on the steps to follow so that you do it right. The experts will explain why some steps must happen before others and also give you steps to follow so that you do not miss out on anything critical.

Role of Onboarding Specialists

Once you kickstart your journey with Lightspeed Retail, the onboarding specialists walk with you through the journey to ensure you are ready to use your new system effectively.

  1. Creating Products

The experts will guide you on how to import your business products to the system. It will help you to start a journey of automated business operations. Classify the products into Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary categories. The first class will give the most general description of your products. An example would be Clothes as the primary entity.

The Secondary classification is an explanation of the general description, and a good example would be “Women Clothing.”

The Tertiary product category is a further description of the Secondary class. An example, in this case, would be “Dresses.”

The Secondary and Tertiary categories are optional, depending on your business needs.

  1. Sales

The Onboarding specialists will take you through the process of making your first sale with the Lightspeed POS system. You will get training on how to accept, process, and complete a purchase. If you need to split a payment, you will also get coaching on how to go about it.

The training session will also equip you with the skill to email or print the receipt to the customer.

  1. Setting up Multiple Stores

When you have more than one store location, you will need to set up multiple stores in your POS. It will enable you to access all your stores from one platform.

You will also centralize operations, making it easy to manage your enterprises without a fuss.

The POS will enable you to manage the different workstations from one device. It comes with the convenience to view your business data in real-time without the need to visit the stores physically.

Omnichannel

Omnichannel is a business solution that enables organizations to improve their customer experience. The technology integrates the different business channels under one platform so that the platforms work as one.

The technology brings together channels such as location, social media, and several others. The purpose is to help the customer to engage with the company through multiple avenues as they desire.

Benefits Of Omnichannel Solutions:

  1. Unlimited Business Opening Hours

The omnichannel technology allows you to have your shop selling throughout the year, day, and night. It gives your clients permission to shop from anywhere and at whatever time they desire.

  1. Cross Channel Shopping

When you use the omnichannel solution for your business, you enable your shoppers to sail smoothly from the in-store platform to online and back to the store. Navigation happens without complications. Your customers will have experience with your company, and it will mean more business for you.

  1. Flexible Shipping

Some shoppers would prefer to pick their goods from your store while others will opt for their workplace. Some clients will choose to have their products delivered to their homes. The omnichannel feature allows you to allow flexible shipping enabling the customer to pick their purchases from where they choose.

  1. Improved Customer Care

The omnichannel helps you to gather customer information across all platforms and centralizes it for your access. It will also help you identify the location of your guests.

The information will facilitate you to create loyalty programs for your clientele. You will, therefore, delight your clients by rewarding them when they visit online. The rewards will be specific to their favorites, and this will boost the customers’ confidence in your brand. The channel will also help you to save time. You will be able to serve more guests within a short time, and that will result in satisfied clients.

  1. Brand Familiarity

When you allow your clients to access your services under one platform, you will help the visitors to have a consistent experience with your brand.

The guests will trust your company and its ability to deliver. You will enjoy the benefits of repeat business. The omnichannel will also help you to gain a broader target group through your multilingual offers.

  1. Targeted Marketing

The omnichannel solution will enable you to send relevant rewards to your clientele. The promotions will focus on their buying patterns, both in-store and online. It will encourage your guests to keep coming back for more products from your store. You can confidently say that the omnichannel platform will increase your sales and boost your revenue.

  1. Social Media Market

The omnichannel will help you to create unique content for your online clientele. The platform will also help you to make new friends and eventually build a community around your firm.

Does Your Business Need Lightspeed Onsite POS?

The purpose of Lightspeed Onsite POS is to help businesses to run their operations seamlessly. It simplifies how you run your daily business operations. It also makes your decision-making process easy, helping you to make more sales. Lightspeed Onsite will, therefore, come in handy whether you are running a single or a multi-store firm.

Lightspeed will give you various functionalities that will come in handy for the growth of your business:

  1. Simplifying Inventory Management

Lightspeed Onsite helps you to escape the fuss of manual inventory management. The POS makes it easy for you to know what you have in stock throughout. It also helps you to place orders with your suppliers and transfer inventory.

Inventory management will ensure that you get alerts when the inventory hits the lowest stock levels you have allowed on the system. It will help you to never miss out on the best sellers in your business. Inventory management keeps your company from wastage. It will guide you on the appropriate portioning so that you never over or underestimate portions to use.

  1. Track Your Business Success

The Onsite POS will give you detailed data reports to help you make informed business decisions all the time.

The data reports are real-time and customized for your use. You will get the data that is relevant for the decision you need to make. The records will show you whether the business is making progress. It will also help you to know when you are taking the wrong business turn so that you correct it.

Retail POS Price Plans

The Lightspeed POS pricing depends on the subscription you select. Price and budget are an essential consideration when purchasing POS. However, always give priority to your business needs. You need a system that will fit your budget, but more than that, you need a system that will add value to your firm.

  1. Basic Subscription

The package is best for starter businesses and comes at the cost of $69 per month billed annually or $79 per month billed monthly.

  1. Starter Subscription

It is best for when you start selling online. It costs $99 per month billed annually and $119 charged per month.

  1. Standard Subscription

It comes in handy when you want to automate accounts. It costs $119 billed annually and $139 charged per month.

  1. Advanced Subscription

When your business is booming and you need to reward your loyal clients, Advanced options will come in handy. It costs $169 when billed annually and $189 if the billing is monthly.

  1. Pro Subscription

It is best for when you want to take your business to new levels of growth by uncovering hidden features in your data.

When you focus on business growth, delighting your customers, and automating business processes, Lightspeed Retail is your investment of choice.

Lightspeed E-Commerce

The E-Commerce POS gives you a platform to sell your products without hitches. It also gives you tools that help you track the sales so that you know the business progress at a glance.

E-Commerce POS takes care of your firm in various ways:

  1. Inventory

The system allows you to import your products from a previous store so that you do not waste any opportunity to sell. It allows the customers to return goods and see the same reflecting in your inventory. The inventory tool also enables you to categorize products. The customers can easily view the products you have in store and decide on what to buy.

The client can quickly search for what they want, focusing their search on the categories of their interest.

Lightspeed E-Commerce gives you the ability to create product variations. The tool accommodates 100 product variants for each product set. You can then create the categories for all product sizes and customize your prices for each option.

The product description feature helps the guests to understand your products in a better way. If you do not add SEO content, the Lightspeed E-Commerce uses your product description as metadata.

When you are calculating your ideal selling price, you will need to work with the buying costs to get your profits. The POS allows you to key in the expenses and conceals the same info from your customers.

Customer Management

Lightspeed POS is exceptional in customer management, which is critical to any business. Gaining a deeper understanding of customer needs, preferences, likes, and dislikes is essential if a company is to grow and thrive.

The customer management feature, therefore, makes this easy by providing a platform for merchants to get critical customer information such as contacts, addresses, shopping trends, purchase history, and personal likes.

Information such as purchase history enables merchants to plan and predict their future sales and inventory needs efficiently. Regular customers are also quickly identified and awarded with discounts or bonuses hence creating client loyalty and right word of mouth form of marketing.

Reporting and Analysis

One of the most critical features of Lightspeed is the report and analysis component, which can develop more than 40 data reports.

The data reports are significant because they provide useful data used for forecasting and decision making. The data is usually on sales revenue, items sold, inventories & supplies, employee performance, among others.

The reports are easy to share with other third parties for advanced analysis and understanding. All this is essential for smart business operations and policymaking. For example, the employee performance reports help managers to identify employee strengths and weaknesses and plan for training in the weak areas.

When you know it is time for your business to automate operations, boost revenue and delight your customers, then you will need Lightspeed Retail.