Montreal-based Lightspeed makes point of sale and eCommerce tools for small businesses. The cloud-based point of sale software for independent retailers and restaurants was founded by CEO Dax Dasilva in 2005 as a four employee startup that has grown to having nearly 600 names on the payroll with seven offices scattered around the globe.
Along with POS solutions for retail stores and restaurants and eCommerce products that include tools for product and inventory management, Lightspeed also offers Omnichannel, a single umbrella solution to integrate online and in store channels under one centralized management system. Currently, the company has 40,000 customers.
Lightspeed Omnichannel
Dasilva tells Small Business Trends how Omnichannel differentiates this software offering.
“We’re the most powerful cloud based commerce solution for independent businesses for both in store and online applications,” he explains adding the company is focused on small to medium sized businesses. To that end, Dasilva says his company’s all in one software offers a number of features geared to the small business market. These include being cloud based with a flagship iPad app, customer relationship management tools, in depth analytics as well as single and mutli-store business capabilities.
Dasilva says the cloud based tool was designed to stitch together the online and offline management experience for independent small businesses. He says a 2016 PricewaterhouseCoopers study found that 54 percent of the 23,000 shoppers surveyed in 25 countries buy products online weekly or monthly. Brick and mortar only stores are left behind as this kind of technology advances. But online only shops are also hampered by offerings like free shipping that customer’s demand but eat away at profits.
The obvious solution is for businesses to keep a foot in both the online and offline world, something Lightspeed’s Omnichannel tool seems suited to accommodate.
“It doesn’t matter whether you started online or in store you now need both. It’s a systems problem that Lightspeed solves quite elegantly because we have a single solution that doesn’t compromise either,” Dasilva says.
The Omnichannel solution allows all of a businesses’ data to be found in one place. Dasilva references another tech breakthrough that facilitated this innovation.
“The cloud has made this possible,” he says.
Omnichannel is a single system that has all of a businesses’ customer, sales and product information available in one place allowing for a seamless experience between online and in store operations.
The one thing that might give small businesses pause is the price of the service. The eCommerce-only solution starts at $59 per month an depending on the service and go up from there. See the company’s site for more details.
Image: Lightspeed HQ
This article, “Lightspeed Makes Point of Sale and eCommerce Tools for Small Business” was first published on Small Business Trends