Vend POS: Now Fully Integrated Into Lightspeed
Updated: May 29th, 2024
Vend was a world-leading point-of-sale system for retailers, which Lightspeed began to acquire in 2021. Afterward, it was absorbed into that company’s products, then rebranded and marketed as part of their retail management platform, Lightspeed Retail (X-Series). To learn more about those current products and services, please read our Lightspeed review.
If you wish to learn more about Vend before Lightspeed's rebranding, you can read our older review below.
Pros
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Quick Stats
About Vend POS
Vend POS is trusted by several world-leading retailers, including Disney, Sennheiser, Jurlique, and more. Vend by Lightspeed has earned an A+ rating from the Better Business Bureau and several five-star ratings from countless customers.
Vend POS is an intuitive point-of-sale software designed for any retail business, of any size. Their friendly user interface allows anyone to be trained to use it in minutes. Vend POS streamlines your retail operations to boost efficiency and increase overall revenue in several ways.
Vend POS seamlessly works with existing or new hardware and syncs all your data to the cloud so it can be accessed from anywhere. Theirs is also a hybrid point-of-sale system that can process offline transactions when the internet connection is unavailable, automatically updating your database once the connection returns.
Vend POS Features
Vend POS is packed with features that will skyrocket your retail store’s revenue and make customers spread the word and come back for more. One of their standout features is multi-store management, which allows you to manage and oversee your different retail store locations from one place.
More features include:
Inventory management
Inventory management is more than just adding your stock items to a list; it also includes setting reorder points for low stock levels and categorizing your products for easier access. In addition, Vend integrates with the best e-commerce platforms for retail, such as BigCommerce, Shopify, and WooCommerce, which enables you to place orders, sell, and ship merchandise on multiple channels.
E-commerce integrations
As mentioned above, Vend integrates with many e-commerce applications to help your retail store sell across multiple channels and platforms. One such app integration is Ecwid, which easily connects with your website, social media platforms, and online marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon.
With a drag-and-drop editor, Ecwid allows you to create beautiful online stores without the need for design or coding. Moreover, their e-commerce solutions will enable you to fulfill online orders, check their status at all times, and ship your orders faster.
Scanner by Vend
With their dedicated barcode scanner application, you can turn your smartphone into a barcode scanner for your inventory. It’s free and is compatible with Android and Apple devices.
Reporting and insights
Valuable and in-depth insights can help you better understand your customers, and Vend POS provides just that. You can customize your sales reports and monitor what products are driving your sales and who your top salespeople are.
Your reports are accessible from anywhere, as all your data is continuously synced with the cloud. You can also dive deeper into reports and overview store metrics down to the register level or sales channel. Sold gift cards can also be tracked to see their redemptions and remaining balances.
Moreover, you can help your staff upsell by setting individual sales targets for them and identifying top performers daily, weekly, or monthly.
Customer management
Vend POS’s customer management tool allows you to build your customer database with ease. You can easily create customer profiles and add an existing customer list with a simple CSV upload.
Gift cards and loyalty programs help you build great customer relationships. In addition to gift cards, you can give your customers store credit instead of a refund or as a goodwill gesture with every purchase to ensure they come back for more. You can also divide them into customer groups to whom you’d offer targeted discounts or promotions.
Tight security measures
Vend ensures all data transmitted through their point-of-sale system is encrypted using the latest secure cipher suites. In addition, they comply with all security standards and regulations, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Vend also trains its employees in security awareness, covering data classification, handling, password hygiene, physical security, and more.
App integrations
As previously mentioned, Vend POS integrates with several business applications that provide extra features, services, and flexibility. Third-party applications are sorted into several categories, such as Accounting, Multi-Channel, ERP, Customer Engagement, Inventory, Scheduling, Bookings, Analytics, Open API, and Employee Management.
Vend POS Plans and Prices
Vend POS offers three plans for its point-of-sale software:
- Lite: This basic plan costs $99 per month, billed annually, or $199 billed monthly, and includes core features such as:
- Unlimited products and users
- Integrated payments
- Secure cloud backup
- Reporting and analytics
- Award-winning support
- Inventory management
- Pro: This costs $129 per month, billed annually, or $159 billed monthly. The Pro plan is more suitable for stores with multiple locations, who need integrations or just want to grow faster. It includes everything under the Lite plan in addition to:
- Promotions and gift cards
- Apps & e-commerce channels
- Multi-outlets retail management
- API access
- Unlimited turnover
- Advanced reporting
- Enterprise: The Enterprise plan is a quote-based package that offers advanced features for large companies and organizations that need more customizations. It includes all the features mentioned above, in addition to a dedicated account manager, premium API access, and customized onboarding.
Vend POS Hardware
Vend POS is compatible with many existing or new hardware. You can use their system with Windows, Mac, iPads, and any tablets or smartphones. They have a compatible hardware page on their website to ensure your existing hardware works well with Vend POS.
However, they don’t advertise hardware prices on their website, so you will have to contact their team to get a personalized quote.
Customer Support and Training
Vend offers a help center and knowledge base with detailed articles on many areas of its POS system. In addition, you can reach customer support by live chat or phone at +1 844-942-2559.
Vend offers onboarding and training services in three plans:
- Standard: For single-store retailers. Training includes:
- Guided tour of Vend
- 1,000 SKUs upload
- Quick data integrity check
- Tips and Advice
- Wrap-up call to answer remaining questions
- Enhanced: For single-store retailers and a small team to train. You get all the Standard training, plus:
- Settings, taxes, and payment types configuration
- Tips and Advice to complete setup
- Training on how to best use Vend POS
- Customer Migration
- Full data integrity check
- Follow-up session 1 month after launch.
- Customized: For multi-store and single-store retailers with more complex operations. You get all the training mentioned above, including:
- Custom services tailored to your business
- User setup and user account creation
- Gift card balances migration
- Training on how to use CSVs
- App integration help
- In-depth training on how to use Vend POS
Final Thoughts
Vend POS is a comprehensive and feature-rich point-of-sale system for retail businesses. Customer reviews praised their ease of use and multi-outlet functionality that scales and adjust to your growing business requirements. You can try their services free of charge for 14 days before committing to a subscription, but rest assured your business will be in safe hands with Vend.
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