Lightspeed Retail vs. Zoho Inventory

It is perfect for any small business looking for inventory control, Tracking purchase history, and just an all round easy to use software for retail and beyond. I would not use it if I have only a few hundred items or was a larger company that can afford to build my own POS software.

Incentivized

Requires a lot of customisation to get started. Very limited customer support, support appeared to not be that knowledgable with issues that aren't the usual issues most users get. Forms aren't optimised for conversions. Zoho offers a lot of features but the depth of its functionality proves limited as our demands increase.

Incentivized

• Very very user friendly.
• Easy iPad interface that is easy to upgrade to new hardware if an iPad breaks, etc.
• On the Advanced plan the reporting is outstanding.
• Very easy to train new employees, especially younger employees raised on phones and tablets.
• We use their payments system and it's a very easy integration. I believe Stripe is their payment provider.

• Tracks which orders have been shipped
• Tracks which orders have been packed
• Tracks with orders have been invoiced
• Works well with Zoho Books

Incentivized

• They have not had major updates to their system in years. The inventory system is stagnant. Although their inventory system is robust, it is outdated.
• They do have 24-hour support, however, wait times are excessive and representatives have challenges understanding your issues.
• Trying to get issues resolved can take months or never at all. Management is non-existent. Trying to reach a supervisor is impossible.
• They have a culture of telling you what you want to hear but have no intentions of actually following through.
• Lightspeed is a great solution if you are a small business just getting started. But if you are intending to grow and expand, Lightspeed will become detrimental to your growth.
• The reporting/analytics is basic at best. They do offer paid options that are very expensive, but it is very robust. The basic reporting is very minimal.

• Templates within Zoho Inventory are very weak. You can't customize many including package slips, shipment docs, etc...
• When an order has multiple packages, it's next to impossible to find the item you are looking for. Scenario, a large order has many packages and a customer has cancelled one of the items. You must click through every package to find the item, edit the package and remove it before you can cancel the item.
• The reports within Inventory are extremely basic and many of them are useless
• The packing slip module is useless as it does not print out bin locations
• It's an inventory management system but it does not have bin locations
• The backorder system is useless. If you "backorder" something then the whole order is locked until the backorder arrives in. Scenario.... a client orders 20 items, 1 is on backorder. You "backorder" that one item but want to ship the other 19... not possible. The order gets completely locked.
• You can't print out RMA requests. There is just no option to do it, you have to do a screen shot
• Integration with Amazon or other 3rd party e-commerce providers is troublesome.

Incentivized

It is relatively easy to customise but the problem is sometimes it is not easy to see where this customisation is available. Also the integrations with external systems can prove problematic both during installation and ongoing development and maintenance. It's great for small companies with a simple inventory or even larger organisations with smaller product lines. And it is reasonably priced if you ar eprepared to put the time in.

Incentivized

Very easy to use and figure out without calling customer support which is also very responsive and helpful.

Incentivized

I gave the rating of a 9 because ninety percent of the time when I talk to their support they're very helpful. One of the only real issues I have is there are times where the queue will be 7-9 people deep. When you have an error you don't know how to fix, sometimes this is very troubling. But overall their support is usually quick and friendly.

Incentivized

We used Microsoft Retail Management System before this and this was in a whole other league of its own with features and ease of use. I really like using Macs also. They are much more reliable and longer lasting than IBM or Similar computers. The cloud based system is great also so you do not have to have another unit to store you database on

Incentivized

The inventory management is better than QuickBooks however you give up an awful lot to get that benefit. The reporting in QuickBooks is far superior. The reporting in Inventory is terrible with every few options to customize the reports. For example, pulling in a salesperson report that factors in returns is not possible. You can't pull a report to see what items need to be picked for all open orders.

Incentivized

• I have to spend a lot less time training my employees because Lightspeed is so easy to use!
• Keeping track of our inventory is as simple as clicking a few buttons.
• Our online sales have grown tremendously since changing to Lightspeed

Incentivized

• Coming from QuickBooks enterprise with inventory add-on it's an improvement in tracking stock because it restricts so much of what you do.
• Migrating to Inventory was a bit of a nightmare. I'd recommend starting clean or bring as little data as possible.

Incentivized