Shopify vs Lightspeed Ecommerce: How Much does it Cost to Build a Website for online Business?

The first and foremost step to creating a highly functional eCommerce store that lives up to expectations is to choose the right web development solutions. Choosing the right web development platform becomes even more important when you are looking to create your first eCommerce store since your choice of the platform will make or break the deal because it can impact customer satisfaction and sales chart.

So, if you are new to Shopify Lightspeed (or the eCommerce world), you’ve come to the right place. That’s to say because in this blog we will be comparing Shopify vs. Lightspeed. So, grab your espresso because this is a long read. Let’s check out the details!

What Is Shopify vs Lightspeed E-commerce?

Lightspeed

Ranging from Sony to Nobu and Goop, Lightspeed POS is a cloud-based solution designed for restaurants, golf courses, and retail businesses. Lightspeed has a wide selection of eCommerce solutions (is Lightspeed the next Shopify?). Lightspeed has been in the business for around fifteen years and is offering several solutions, such as payment processing, inventory management, and analytics.

Lightspeed Retail is empowering users to manage in-store as well as online operations. In addition, it uses POS hardware for handling in-store payments through barcode scanners and receipt printers.

Shopify

We are certain that you’ve always heard about Shopify whenever it concerns online eCommerce stores. It has more than 1,000,000 customers, and it can be used for running, growing, and managing the online store. It even has an analytics part. Shopify is offering more than 150 templates, along with the point-of-sale app.

Read Also Shopify vs Oberlo

Why Need To Compare Lightspeed eCommerce Vs. Shopify?

Lightspeed vs. Shopify has always been a debate ever since the eCommerce trends have become popular. However, there are some distinct features in both these platforms, and comparing them is essential to determine which platform is suitable for your online store. In this section, we are outlining different factors that differentiate Lightspeed eCommerce and Shopify platforms!

Shopify vs Lightspeed eCommerce – Functionality 

Lightspeed 

When it comes down to functionality, Lightspeed is offering features in three categories, such as golf, retail, and restaurant. However, when it comes down to retail elements, the categories are dropped down into eight categories. To illustrate, the functionality of Lightspeed is widespread because it has reporting and analytics, inventory, multi-store, along with cloud, and mobility.

Lightspeed is offering integrated payment, such as refunds, mobile payment, flexible payment, and compliance. Besides, it has omnichannel, customer management, and marketing, along with onboarding and support for the customers.

Shopify

Shopify has a wide range of POS and storefront features for users. If we consider the functionality, Shopify is categorized into nine sub-categories. Shopify has a shopping cart that can accept different credit cards. In addition, the users can opt for an SSL certificate for free. That being said, store management of Shopify is great since it offers different add-ons.

Shopify Web Design Vs. Lightspeed

Lightspeed

Lightspeed is suitable for medium-scale retailers and companies that have a brick-and-mortar configuration. Lightspeed has a well-integrated and in-store setup, along with eCommerce service integration. However, Lightspeed is also being used by large-scale businesses, such as Adidas. In addition, it has over seven thousand retailers, and it keeps growing, accrediting high-end design and setup.

Shopify 

Shopify is popular for cookie-cutting and convenience stores. It has multiple add-ons for handling the specific needs of the store. Shopify has integrated an extensive range of plugins, ranging from shipping to web design customization and tax rates. Shopify is designed for small-scale eCommerce platforms. Also, they have designed mobile commerce and POS solutions.

Lightspeed Commerce vs Shopify – Themes

Lightspeed

Lightspeed is focused on POS systems and has around 51 themes for users. There are some free themes available as well. The themes are categorized based on business types like restaurants, golf, and default. However, themes are generally chosen for their features and functionalities.

On the contrary, when you choose a specific theme, you won’t be able to add up customized features. For instance, not all themes have blocks, so you need to choose the theme which offers blocks because it cannot be customized. All in all, the themes are modern and slick.

Shopify

There is a wide range of customizable themes that are designed to meet or exceed the needs of the stores. However, only nine themes are free, so that’s a hit to your budget. Every theme of Shopify comes with two or three variants, but all of them deliver a professional appearance. Also, Shopify allows users to buy and integrate themes from third-party platforms.

lightspeed vs shopify e-commerce – Features

Lightspeed 

When it comes down to the features of Lightspeed, it has multiple menu features since it’s focused on restaurants. In addition to the menu feature, it has a kitchen display system along with order taking. Lightspeed has inventory control, table organization, staff management, and offline payment systems for users.

Shopify 

Shopify is offering inventory control and inventory management features for users. In addition, it has data security features for online stores to ensure a secure experience for the users.

Payment Gateways & Fees

Lightspeed 

Lightspeed has been around for around fifteen years, but they launched the payments for integrated processing back in 2019. However, before 2019, Lightroom was integrated with Mercury, Moneris, and Cayan. However, the users can also use Vantiv and/or Cayan for integrating the credit card processor for the payment gateway system. As far as the process of card transaction is concerned with Lightspeed, you need the countertop credit card machine. Also, these payments aren’t automatically recorded in the POS.

Shopify 

Shopify offers a wide range of credit card options in the category of payment gateways. It can be integrated with various payment gateways; it also offers support for PayPal. The users can access the free SSL certificate for encryption. Shopify allows the users to set flexible shipping charges as well. For example, Shopify payments UAE are very flexible and offer payment in native currency which can attract a lot of customers.

Budget & Pricing

Shopify 

Shopify basically has four packages. To begin with, the life plan is around $9 for one month, while the basic plan costs around $29 on a monthly basis and is suitable for new businesses. There is a Shopify plan with $79 monthly costs and is suitable for growing businesses. Lastly, Shopify has an advanced plan which costs around $299 for one month.

However, this pricing is likely to vary depending on the POS system. Shopify is offering a 14-day free trial. After the trial period, you need to develop the store, and the costs will fluctuate with peripherals and hardware. In addition, the Shopify card reader is extremely affordable for card processing systems.

Lightspeed 

There are three pricing plans designed by Lightspeed to meet the varying needs of the businesses. The small plan is suitable for five employees through one register at $99 on a monthly basis. Secondly, the medium plan offers two registers with around ten employees and costs around $169. The third plan is the large plan offers four registers with twenty employees and costs $289 for one month.

However, the users can customize the plans by adding employees and registers. To illustrate, one employee addition will cost $9 for one month. However, adding the additional registration will cost $59 for one month (one register offers access to three extra employees). Lastly, the users can opt for an annual subscription payment.

Marketing Tools

Lightspeed 

With Lightspeed, users can sell products through social media platforms. There are built-in blogging features that also allow SEO optimization. The users can integrate loyalty reward programs, accounting software, and eCommerce tools. On the contrary, Lightspeed doesn’t have integrations with different marketing apps.

Shopify 

Shopify offers SEO optimization, and users can even sell products on Facebook. The users can send discounts to the customers. The users can also set up a blog with Shopify. Shopify is integrated with more than forty-one thousand apps in different categories, and marketing automation is one of them.

SEO

Lightspeed 

Lightspeed allows users to sell products through social media platforms. Besides, the blogging feature is available, which means the users can optimize the website for SEO.

Shopify 

Shopify is offering SEO optimization along with social media platforms (only for Facebook, by the way). Since users can set up the blog, which means SEO optimization is available.

Shopify Vs. Lightspeed eCommerce For Dropshipping

Dropshipping is a process for online retailing where users don’t have to create an inventory or stock. Dropshipping means that you take the order, send the order details to the supplier, and they will send the order to the clients, and you earn the commission.

Shopify 

Shopify has become a leading eCommerce software platform as it allows users to sell products across different platforms. The inventory management system is impeccable and has various sales tools for marketing the store. In addition, there are various integrations for covering the needs. Also, Shopify has the dropshipping capacity for finding the products for selling in the store.

Lightspeed

Lightspeed does have a dropshipping capacity, but users will need a higher budget for developing the store that can support dropshipping. For instance, the users can integrate the Lightspeed store with 24seven commerce for selling through Amazon and eBay.

Customer Help And Technical Support

Shopify 

Shopify is offering 24/7 customer support and technical support. With the customer and technical support on Shopify, the users can access help from the help center, webinars, help center, videos, along the customer support team.

Lightspeed

Lightspeed does have 24/7 customer support but users have to make an appointment for technical support. In addition, Lightspeed has AskLightSpeed for online help. In addition, Lightroom can be accessed through the Twitter account.

Integration

Lightspeed

Lightspeed can be integrated with over 45 apps with different categories. These tools and apps include the analytics tool and customer service apps. In addition, the users can integrate eCommerce tools, loyalty reward programs, and accounting software. Lightspeed can be integrated with marketing apps, and some retail-oriented apps are available as well. The retail-oriented apps include inventory management, employee scheduling, and rentals.

Shopify

Shopify can be integrated with nearly every tool, and the app availability is huge. To illustrate, there are more than 41,000 apps that can be integrated with Shopify. These pre-build Shopify apps belong to different categories, such as customer service, pop-ups, accounting, marketing, forms, inventory planning, themes, and automation. Also, the forms app is available as well for integration.

Sales Features

Lightspeed

Lightspeed is offering point-of-sales solutions for restaurant as well as retail businesses. With the sales system, the users customize the system according to the business type, which means the technical setup will be included. There is an immense focus on sales solutions. That being said, the users can take contactless card payments, send receipts, and use PCI-compliant payment processing.

As a part of the sales system, the users can manage the eCommerce inventory and transfer the products between different locations. In addition, you can set up centralized orders and generate multi-store reports.

Shopify 

With the sales system of Shopify, users can unify online sales as well as in-store sales. There are mobile card readers through which the users can accept payments in-store as well as online. In addition, there is custom staff permission from one place and access inventory features, along with access to unified reporting and stock transfers.

With the Shopify sales system, users can create an unlimited store staff account, access in-store analytics, draw out permissions and roles, and access smart inventory management.

Inventory Management

Lightspeed 

Lightspeed offers convenient and simple inventory management. For instance, the users can order the product stock from the point-of-sales. In addition, users can easily create product variants and purchase orders. Lightspeed offers a mobile inventory system with personalized branding and optimal employee training.

Shopify 

Shopify allows users to integrate dropshipping features, and set up segments and customer profiles. The segments can be created through refunds and browsing history. The users can automate the inventory updates and organize the products. Shopify also has mobile inventory management, so you can manage the products and inventory with a few clicks.

Mobile Responsiveness

Shopify 

Shopify boasts back-office and register dashboards that make it easy to use and simple to handle. The register interface can be accessed through the apps. Shopify is suitable for iOS and Android smartphones. Also, themes provided by Shopify are mobile responsive and can be customized with grids, menus, add-ons, and discounts.

Lightspeed

Lightspeed is not mobile responsive. This is because it can only be used on macOS or Windows with Safari and Chrome, respectively. However, the sales app is compatible with iPads.

Application Integrations

Lightspeed 

The app compatibility and integration are pretty limited yet complicated with Lightspeed because it demands the coding experience. Lightspeed application integrations are only suitable if you have a huge IT budget or an in-house development. That being said, the application integration with Lightspeed will be expensive.

Shopify 

The users can customize the platform, and it doesn’t need any coding. Various apps can be plugged into the Shopify store for streamlining functionality. That being said, app integration is pretty convenient with Shopify.

The Final Verdict

Now that we have rounded up every bit of information about the functionality, design, features, and integrations, it’s time to make a final decision. So, which online store developer is good for you? Truth be told, the Shopify store is a well-integrated and all-in-one option. On the contrary, Lightspeed is a limited solution.

FAQs About Shopify vs Lightspeed eCommerce

Selling on lightspeed eCommerce vs. amazon vs. Shopify: which one is cost-effective for eCommerce Business?

The most cost-effective solution is Shopify since the platform offers customized and affordable packages, as well as, there are tons of apps to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of online stores.

Lightspeed eCommerce vs. amazon vs. Etsy vs. Shopify: which one is best for eCommerce Business?

For the most part, Shopify is a better option because it delivers scalability and flexibility. However, you will yield benefits from the huge search volume of Amazon, so try for yourself!

Is lightspeed eCommerce free?

Yes, Lightspeed eCommerce is completely free and is available around the clock.

Does lightspeed eCommerce work with Shopify?

Lightspeed Shopify integration has always been a point of interest. So, yes, Shopify and Lightspeed can be integrated with skulQ which helps sync the customers, inventory, and orders.

Shopify vs. Lightspeed eCommerce used items: which is best?

Shopify is a better choice because it offers better features, support, and integrations.

Why is Lightspeed better than Shopify?

No, Lightspeed isn’t better than Shopify because it cannot offer as many features as Shopify (no, not even with shopify amazon integration).

Does Lightspeed integrate with Shopify?

Lightspeed integration with Shopify has always been intimidating. To answer the question, yes, Lightspeed can integrate with Shopify.

What is the difference between Shopify and Lightspeed for inventory management?

Shopify allows users to automate the inventory while there is no automation feature in Lightspeed.

How much does it cost to hire someone to build a Shopify eCommerce website?

The cost of freelance services of a professional developer to set up a Shopify website can vary from region to region and depend upon the type of work you need. The factors included but not limited to, are 1- The region from where you hire the person. 2- SEO of the website can be costly as it is a whole art. 3- Images: It depends if you provide your own images or ask the person to either use stock photos or produce them from scratch. The cost may vary. 4- Third-party programs and apps. 5- Web development and coding. 6- Free or paid services from website builders. And there are many other factors including the cost of services of Shopify as Shopify offers three-tier plans; $29, $79 and $299. Also, it charges a transaction fee on card payments 2.5% + 30 cents. And employs third-party apps for features that are also paid and frankly, quite expensive.