Are you struggling to connect your brick-and-mortar sales with your online orders due to the plethora of vendors available? If so, you’ll find valuable insights in our Lightspeed VS Shopify comparison, the two well-known POS systems.

This article aims to streamline the essential features of Shopify POS and Lightspeed POS eCommerce platforms, assisting you in making an informed choice for your business.

Lightspeed POS vs Shopify POS – An Overview

Before turning inside out of the Lightspeed vs Shopify comparison, let’s take a moment to grasp the contemporary meaning of POS.

What is Point Of Sale (POS)?

The shift to digital methods has greatly influenced traditional businesses that rely on manual processes. Everyone wants to keep up, which is why many are embracing POS systems to make their daily tasks smoother and increase their earnings.

Not too long ago, POS systems were basically a combination of software and hardware specifically designed to make in-person transactions smoother. Think of retail stores, restaurants, or market stands where they’d be used.

But with the booming trend of online shopping in recent years, POS solutions have evolved quite a bit. Nowadays, they do more than just handle in-person sales.

Modern POS systems come with features that help businesses sell their products both in-store and through online shops.

These days POS systems typically offer the businesses the ability to:

• Accept payments in-person.
• Utilize various types of POS hardware that suit different selling situations.
• Keep track of your inventory effectively.
• Establish an online store for your business.
• Seamlessly synchronize data from both you’re in-person and online sales.
• Manage staff permissions with flexibility.

A Sneak Peek at Shopify POS

Shopify is a globally recognized eCommerce platform, serving the needs of over 4.7 million businesses across the world.

• Shopify initially started as an ‘eCommerce-first’ platform, allowing users to create online stores without needing coding skills. It’s user-friendly and a favorite among small businesses and solo entrepreneurs.
• Back in 2013, Shopify introduced its point-of-sale system, opening up opportunities for shop owners to oversee and sell their products from just about anywhere.
• It has expanded to provide comprehensive and adaptable POS capabilities that are seamlessly integrated with its robust eCommerce framework.
• Since then, Shopify has gained popularity even among larger retail businesses as a means to facilitate point-of-sale transactions, and more than a million users have harnessed Shopify POS.
• This software application empowers customers to efficiently manage their entire retail business, whether it’s online or in a physical store.
• It provides a unified platform for tracking and managing orders and inventory across various sales channels, making life easier for business owners.

Shopify mainly caters to businesses that originated online and now want to extend their reach by establishing physical stores to reach a new set of customers.

What’s particularly advantageous is that Shopify includes the Shopify Lite POS plan with all its eCommerce packages.

This makes Shopify POS a strong choice for a wide range of companies, particularly for the millions of businesses globally that are already utilizing the platform.

Lightspeed POS

Lightspeed takes a ‘POS-first’ approach, primarily tailored for traditional brick-and-mortar businesses.

• This means customers can depend on Lightspeed not just for in-store sales but also for building online stores and managing their businesses effectively both in-person and on the web.
• It is a sophisticated cloud-based POS system that caters to a wide range of industries, including retail, food and beverage, and professional services.
• Originally designed for in-store transactions, Lightspeed has evolved into a comprehensive business solution.
• It now offers a suite of features, including
  • Inventory management,
  • Analytics,
  • Payment processing, and
  • Purchase order management.
• Lightspeed is particularly well-suited for medium to large-sized retail and restaurant establishments, offering customizable POS solutions to meet specific business requirements.

While it does provide tools for building online stores, Ligtspeed’s primary strength lies in serving physical retail stores and restaurants.

Lightspeed POS vs Shopify POS – Everything Compared

Pricing comparison

When you’re looking to invest in new technology for your business, pricing is always a big factor to think about. With Shopify and Lightspeed, you’ve got various options to choose from based on your specific requirements.

Let’s dive into the details…

Shopify POS plans

To use Shopify POS system, you’ll need a Shopify eCommerce plan. It begins with Shopify Lite, which allows you to add a store button to an existing site. But if you want to access full Shopify POS features, you’ll need at least the Basic plan. Here are your options:

• Basic Shopify: This plan costs $25 per month and includes support for an unlimited number of products, multiple sales channels, and transaction fees starting at 1.7%.
• Shopify: The standard Shopify plan is priced at $69 per month. It includes all Basic features, plus local payment methods, standard reports, and support for up to 5 inventory locations. Transaction fees start at 1.6%.
• Shopify Advanced: For $259 per month, you get everything from the standard plan and additional features like eCommerce automations, third-party shipping rates, and advanced reports. This plan includes 15 staff accounts, 8 locations, and transaction fees starting at 1.5%.

If you’re going for the advanced enterprise package, Shopify Plus, you’ll have access to Shopify POS Pro. The rest of the packages come with free POS Lite. If you want to upgrade to POS Pro, it’s available with all packages outside of Plus, and it costs an additional $89 per month. It provides you with more inventory management tools, workflows, and staff permissions.

Lightspeed POS Plans

Lightspeed’s pricing structure depends on whether you’re looking at Lightspeed “Retail” or “Lightspeed Restaurant.”

Each option is tailored to specific tools for retail or food service businesses. In the retail category, you have several choices:

• Free Plan: This basic plan provides the essentials for setting up an eCommerce store.
• Venture: Priced at $14.08 per month, this plan includes the retail ePOS and eCommerce features.
• Business: For $29.08 per month, you get everything from the Venture plan, plus Loyalty capabilities.
• Unlimited: Priced at $82.50 per month, this plan includes all the features from the Business plan, along with comprehensive analytics.

You can start your journey with a free plan that gives you a website builder and an online store to kickstart your business.

Notably, Lightspeed also offers a specialized “Golf” package. This package provides features like business intelligence, a Tee-sheet, event management, and online booking, among others. However, for this service, you’ll need to request a customized quote.

OmniChannel capabilities

When it comes to omnichannel selling, both Shopify and Lightspeed POS offer valuable features.

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Customer management

When it comes to managing customers, both eCommerce platforms offer features aimed at turning your customers into loyal advocates.

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Payment process

These eCommerce business management tools provide secure and dependable credit card payment options for your business. Let’s check in detail –

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Please note that the cost of extra registers can vary for both platforms, depending on your business requirements. It’s crucial to carefully evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each system before making your decision.

Both eCommerce business management tools offer competitive pricing and good value for the services they provide, even though they have varying pricing models.

Inventory & staff management

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Moreover, if we talk regarding staff management, Shopify has a lot to offer. Their staff management tools encompass manager approvals, support for unlimited POS staff, and a range of roles and permissions. You can attribute sales to specific staff members, assign them unique POS PINs, and closely monitor their performance.

Lightspeed POS, on the other hand, enables you to oversee multiple systems from a unified environment and keep tabs on your employees, no matter where they may be.

Apps & integrations

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When it comes to enhancing the functionality of your point of sale system through apps and integrations, Shopify POS takes the lead.

One noteworthy Shopify POS app is ‘Stocky,’ which provides an extensive range of additional features to ‘POS Pro’ users. With Stocky, you can manage purchase orders, communicate with suppliers, conduct inventory assessments, receive product suggestions based on profit margins, and facilitate stock movement across various inventory locations.

Mobile POS

If in-person sales aren’t frequent enough to justify investing in dedicated POS hardware from Lightspeed or Shopify, there’s good news. Both platforms allow you to perform essential POS tasks through mobile apps. Let’s check out what these eCommerce business management tools have to offer under Mobile POS –

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Online store building

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Even though Shopify is more renowned as an eCommerce platform, there are a couple of areas where Lightspeed outshines Shopify.

Lightspeed is more accommodating when it comes to the size of digital products you can sell. They allow you to offer files up to 25 GB in size, while Shopify’s limit for equivalent files is 5GB.

Reporting, analytics and checkout

When it comes to the checkout process and reporting, both Shopify and Lightspeed offer a wealth of useful features.

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Lightspeed POS vs Shopify POS – In a Nutshell

What good do you get with Lightspeed?

• Lightspeed’s inventory management system is packed with additional features. It includes built-in layaway functionality, the ability to track wastage, and kitting features to streamline your operations.
• With Lightspeed POS, you can accept card payments even when you’re offline, which isn’t an option with Shopify.
• Lightspeed caters to specific industries, providing tailored POS software for restaurants, hospitality businesses, and golf-related operations.
• Lightspeed extends a personalized onboarding experience with most of its POS plans to help you get started smoothly.
• If you choose Lightspeed, you can sell up to 5 eCommerce products for free through its ‘Free’ eCommerce plan.

What does Shopify has to offer?

• Shopify’s pricing is crystal clear, and you can easily find it on their website. In contrast, Lightspeed often requires you to contact a sales representative.
• All Shopify plans allow you to sell an unlimited number of eCommerce products, including their $5 per month ‘Starter’ plan. Lightspeed only offers unlimited product listings on their most expensive eCommerce plan, which costs $99 per month.
• Shopify’s POS apps are highly compatible with smartphones and have received mostly positive reviews from both iOS and Android users.
• Shopify’s built-in payment processor, Shopify Payments, is available in a considerably larger number of countries compared to the Lightspeed counterpart.
• When it comes to payment gateways, Shopify provides support for a more extensive range in comparison to Lightspeed.
• Shopify’s app store is more robustly stocked with various apps.

Lightspeed POS vs Shopify POS – FAQs

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Now, The Decision Is Yours!

In the end, if you’re on the hunt for a powerful tool to help you sell your products or services, whether it’s through an online store or a physical shop, both Shopify and Lightspeed POS can get the job done.

Shopify is fantastic for creating stunning online shopping experiences. It’s versatile enough to support in-store sales as well, offering a bunch of features to help you build strong relationships with your customers.

Shopify also makes it a breeze to implement omnichannel sales and marketing strategies, thanks to its wide range of integrations with other useful tools.

However, Lightspeed is no slouch in the omnichannel department either. It’s particularly good for certain types of businesses. The retail solution from Lightspeed is solid, and it truly shines when you need customized features for a restaurant.

What’s even more unique is that Lightspeed has special features for golf-related businesses.

Ultimately, deciding between Shopify and Lightspeed comes down to the type of customers you want to reach and the specific needs of your business.

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