Lightspeed launches...

Did no one see this but me? Press release greatly shortened and paraphrased in places by me. Bolding also by me as this is from my notes:

"Lightspeed launches new flagship eCommerce solution to retail customers

Announced a new flagship eCommerce product built on the integration of its acquisition of Ecwid, a leading, global eCommerce platform. This launch is an important step in providing retailers a powerful, flexible, and unified offering for eCommerce and omnichannel solutions.

Lightspeed eCommerce offers a new starting point for merchants to join the Lightspeed ecosystem and grow their businesses with the help of sophisticated in-store and online commerce tools, advanced data, simple product ordering functionality and streamlined access to suppliers.

“Commerce has evolved beyond a basic online store or a single-function POS. True modern commerce is meeting your buyers where they are, whether that’s on TikTok or Main Street,” said Dax Dasilva, Founder and CEO, Lightspeed. “Lightspeed eCommerce represents the omnichannel vision that we have believed in for years: that retail merchants need to be able to scale and customize tools to fit their unique business without compromise, whether they operate primarily online, in-store, or both. We’re proud of the rapid progress we’ve made on this integration to further improve our offering for our customers.”

The benefits and features of Lightspeed eCommerce include:

• Easy to use and set up
Lightspeed eCommerce is a great fit for retailers who have minimal to no eCommerce experience. Setting up an online business is incredibly easy, with advanced features every merchant can take advantage of to grow their business.

• So much more than just a web store
Designed to perform in a world of ever-changing online consumer behaviour, Lightspeed eCommerce empowers merchants to sell directly on social media, online marketplaces, and search engines. This includes a direct partnership with TikTok, allowing Lightspeed’s merchants to seamlessly access core functions of TikTok For Business Ads Manager without leaving the platform.

• Simplify and unify omnichannel operations
Connecting the online and in-store platforms, Lightspeed retail merchants will be able to reduce the time spent on managing inventory, orders, and product details. Elevate the shopping experience with a suite of customer management features that are proven to boost sales (like abandoned cart recovery) and customer communication tools.

“I really wanted something that had my in-store point of sale and online store incorporated into one. I didn’t want to have to deal with two different sets of inventory and constantly having to update,” said store owner Kassandra McMillan. “Lightspeed eCommerce is all-in-one and nice and simple. I don’t have the time or the knowledge to go and build a website, so the fact that it’s been so easy to use is really refreshing.”

Lightspeed eCommerce is now available to all of Lightspeed’s retail merchants around the world."

Best,

Saul

PS - Probably accounts for some of the big rise in the stock today. It should.

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Part of the FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) around the short attack has been that LSPD is a serial acquirer that can’t actually integrate its acquisitions.

In the last two weeks LSPD announced their new Restaurant and Hospitality platform.
https://investors.lightspeedhq.com/English/newsroom/news-det…

Then they announced their new integrated ecommerce platform
https://investors.lightspeedhq.com/English/newsroom/news-det…

On top of that they announced they are expanding lightspeed capital.
https://investors.lightspeedhq.com/English/newsroom/news-det…

The restaurant platform is an integration of Upserve, Gastrofix, Kounta, iKentoo and lightspeeds core modules. This should firmly put to rest the idea that lightspeed is just running each of these acquisitions as separate businesses.

The eCommerce platform is built around ecwid which they just closed. I would expect we see more around commerce in the next few months as the supply side and analytics of Nuorder and Shopkeep are integrated and LSPD further focuses their Commerce platform on inventory/supplier management.

Let us not forget lightspeed capital. When LSPD talked about acquiring Shopkeep one of the things they were very excited about was Shopkeep’s more advanced capital lending program. I don’t have that link on hand. I’ll try to find it later.

The next year is going to be very transformative for lightspeed. I look forward to their earnings before the bell on 11/4. We should get a nice update on how payments are going as well as how the businesses are integrating.

Best
-e

73 Likes

The restaurant platform is an integration of Upserve, Gastrofix, Kounta, iKentoo and lightspeeds core modules. This should firmly put to rest the idea that lightspeed is just running each of these acquisitions as separate businesses.

The eCommerce platform is built around ecwid which they just closed. I would expect we see more around commerce in the next few months as the supply side and analytics of Nuorder and Shopkeep are integrated and LSPD further focuses their Commerce platform on inventory/supplier management.

This is the beauty of the SaaS model: you do the integrations and all heavy lifting once and then all the subscribing customers enjoy it. You don’t need to have customers to install, upgrade or anything like that. I bet they already had this integration ready before the acquisition, and they just published it after some testing once the acquisition was cleared. Much as Salesforce did with the Slack integration. The acceleration is massive.

From a business perspective, this integration is one step further towards a truly omnichannel SaaS retail solution, they solve the burden of having to manage stock data between online and brick-and-mortar stores. And then they could easily add chat, sell through whatsapp or messenger, provide analytics, etc etc. Without the need from customers to do anything! A very powerful value proposition for SMEs. While I do not know Shopify too much to tell about the Shopify POS, I see a strong value proposition from LSPD in that they integrate into a single platform all the channels and payment methods, in particular the brick and mortar shop with the eCommerce, and they go into the Value Chain to provide meaningful services. Then, they go back and provide services to the suppliers, like sell through data, and they give back to the retailers with aggregate shopping and shopping trends.

If they could add a marketplace of partner solutions, it would be awesome. I am very bullish on LSPD.

Question to the community: Did anyone compare the Shopify POS with LSPD POS? Any analytics? Costs?

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