A massive competitor of ours, Lightspeed, the HUGE Canadian POS software company, is promoting Lightspeed Payments as being revolutionary, delivering to retailers new benefits. Check out this pitch, which they published recently via Inside Retail.
At the forefront of this transformation, new payment systems are now advancing the way retailers handle transactions and manage their businesses. Instead of manually inputting sales into separate payment terminals after processing them on their point-of-sale (POS), retailers are now increasingly turning to systems that sync their POS with their payment processors, allowing transactions to seamlessly flow between the two platforms. These setups are commonly referred to as integrated payment systems.
There is no advance, no new technology.
Tower Systems has offered integrated payments for more than 15 years.
Lightspeed Payments is new to Lightspeed and so it makes sense that they pitch it a an advance. For them maybe it is an advance, bot not for Tower Systems and plenty of other software companies that have delivered this for may years.
The big Lightspeed Payments advance is that they integrate with their own payments platform, a payments platform off of which Lightspeed makes money from every payments transaction in a retail business using their software.
This is the advance – that Lightspeed makes more money from its customers.
It is disappointing seeing news outlets publish news of an advance that is really a tool or tax of retail transactions conducted through specific software.
Is this fair for retailers?
If you are Lightspeed customer and you choose to not use their payments platform Lightspeed has started charging customers a fee to compensate for them not making payments revenue from you.
In our opinion, what Lightspeed claims is an advance in its technology solution for retailers via Lightspeed Payments is, in fact, a price increase in the use of its software, something imposed on retailers but dressed as some great advancement.
Here at Tower Systems we believe that retailers should get to choose the payments platform that is right for their business. This choice can lead to significant savings in the cost of payments. We know of retailers paying way less than if they were using Lightspeed and were locked into the Lightspeed Payments platform.
But let’s go back to the article at Inside Retail by Lightspeed and check in on another claim.
Where Lightspeed takes things a step further is in conjoining these linked systems into a single, comprehensive platform that combines POS and payments, allowing every aspect of the transaction process to be seamlessly synchronised.
In 0ur opinion, this is a misrepresentation of the facts.
Okay, Lightspeed Payments may take things a step further compared to what Lightspeed did in the past. But for many POS software companies, for manny years we have provided a single, comprehensive platform that combines POS and payments. And, we have done that for a lower cost and with more control offered each retailer.
Lightspeed is a mighty and successful company for sure. We are not even the size of an ant in comparison. The size difference does not mean they should get a free kick in terms of marketing spin. In our opinion, the claims being made in relation to Lightspeed Payments are inaccurate and shallow.
Our advice to retailers is to do your homework, look at the total cost of ownership, and, choose the software that serves your needs best as functionality and customer service are the two most critical factors. All good POS software puffers integrated payments, what Lightspeed claims as an advance is not – they are late that party.
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