Upgrading Your Point of Sale – Buyer’s Guide
As a retail owner do you face challenges with sales reporting, customer tracking, employee management, keeping track of inventory, and taking all the latest payment types? If so, you may need a point of sale upgrade. When you start researching new point of sale options you are going to find out there are many choices, but how do you know which system is right for your retail business? We’ve done the hard research and product testing for you and have reduced your long list down to two great choices for you to compare: Lightspeed and Clover.
Both systems are strong in these three areas:
Forms of payment
Clover and Lightspeed allow you to take all forms of payment. With either system you will be fully EMV compliant and able to take EMV chipped cards, Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay, and traditional credit and debit cards.
Support
If you purchase your Clover POS or Lightspeed Retail system through SilverEdge you will have 24/7/365 customer and technical support from our team of experts. Our team will help you with install, inventory setup and maintenance, and with any other questions or concerns you may have.
Cloud-based software
The traditional point of sale systems run on sever-based software, but both Clover and Lightspeed Retail systems are cloud-based. Instead of having your data stored on your own system, it’s stored online in the “cloud”, meaning you can access your POS data anywhere via any device. So you can check on your employees’ timecards, your real time sales, or your inventory levels from the comfort of your own living room
Clover and Lightspeed each have unique attributes that are tailored to meet specific business needs. The below areas are key differentiators that will help determine which is the best system for your business:
Ability to Grow with your business
Clover is specifically designed for small- medium sized businesses with less than 10,000 skus. You can customize your system by utilizing the options of having the fully loaded Clover Station, the versatile Clover Mobile, or the terminal replacement option- the Clover Mini, or a combination of all three.
Lightspeed can carry a business from small to large with the capability of processing 25,000 skus. Lightspeed is built with growth in mind. You can easily adapt your system for a pop-up shop, trade shows, an added location, or even just a busy season.
Configuration Requirements
Clover is pretty much a plug and play system. The Clover POS is an all-in-one touchscreen system that operates on its own hardware. It’s a plug and play system that even comes with color coded cords so you can setup your system in a matter of minutes. The software is very intuitive with the app based layout like all of our beloved smart phones. If you can use a smart phone you can operate the Clover POS.
Lightspeed is compatible with iPads, PCs, and Macs so you most likely will be able to uitilze hardware that if familiar to you. The software is robust yet intuitive. The complex features will require an initial onboarding session but that is just because you have so many tools at your fingertips. Once fully installed the system is easily learned by all front-lined employees.
Inventory
Clover comes with a basic form of inventory that is designed for businesses with simple inventory structures. Businesses with more complex inventories can upgrade to a variety of apps to fit their individual needs at an additional cost. Stock being the most popular for its ability to track product, track purchase orders, and view sales history for each product.
Lightspeed is the mecca of inventory control. It was originally designed with bike stores in mind meaning it can handle upwards of 20,000 skus, almost double what Clover is designed to handle. It can simplify your inventory with categories, tags and matrices. Not only do you have full control of your inventory, you can import thousands of products effortlessly with catalogues that are preloaded into your POS system. If your catalogue isn’t found Lightspeed will add it for you. There is also the ability to bundle boxed items and sell them as their own sku. You can process work orders for a repair, tailor, or alteration effortlessly.
Reporting
Clover comes with simplistic reporting, but there are many apps available on the app market that can fulfill your report needs. With the app market you can customize your reporting to fit your exact needs. SilverEdge has bundled a few of the best reporting and customer tracking apps to in one bundle for our clients, EdgeInsights. With EdgeInsights you can view customer trends, average ticket size across any period, see sales lifts and drops, and implement automatic rewards in increase loyalty and entice new customers.
Lightspeed Retail includes over 40 different reports. You can see items sold, total sales or a period of time, or averaged per hour, day-specific profits by product categories, total profit, profit per hour and it goes on and on. If you want to see a report on it, Lightspeed has it.
Choosing which system for you will strictly come down to what features you are needing or wanting to have in your new point of sale system. Both systems are great choices. If you are looking for a simple, intuitive, app-based software, and you have minimal skus the Clover POS will be your best bet. If you are looking to fully reign in your inventory and reporting with the flexibility of growing from a small business to a medium or even large business then Lightspeed Retail will be your dream system.
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