Connected communications and digital technology have changed business as we know it. Retailers and restaurants are no exception. Lightspeed is among the companies out there assisting retailers and restaurants with their digital transformations.
The 10-year-old Montreal-based company does that by outfitting them with e-commerce, customer shopping pattern analysis, inventory management, order acceptance, and point of sale solutions, as noted in a recent story by The Hamilton Spectator. It delivers these offerings via the software-as-a-service model, and prices start at $76 a month.
Lightspeed’s target customers are mid-sized retailers and restaurants with at least $600,000 in annual sales per location and up to 50 locations, according to the piece. About 25,000 customers use the services of Lightspeed, which processes $10 billion in transactions annually, the article reports.
The company just last week announced it has raised $61 million (U.S.) in its latest round of funding. This new rounds brings aboard Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Investissement Québec. Existing investors include Accel Partners and iNovia Capital (News - Alert).
There is quite a lot popping in terms of new technologies in the retail realm. For example, while early efforts to make beacons and smartphone-based payments widespread in the U.S. failed to meet expectations, both of these areas recently have gained new momentum due at least in part to Google’s recent announcement of Eddystone. Beacons can help trigger an action; by noting a customer is by a certain display, they can inform a system to send that customer a coupon to incentivize them to purchase a product in that vicinity. Beacons also can enable quick and easy payments at the point of sale. In fact, Google (News - Alert) is testing such capability in San Francisco, according to Steve Statler, principal of Statler Consulting LLC, who was part of a panel at the recent IoT Evolution Expo.
The retail industry is a key vertical for providers of connected communications services and other solutions. That includes nearly 90 million ATMs, fare collection devices, parking meters, point-of-sale terminals, and vending machines. This vertical represents 18.4 million cellular connections today, says Berg Insight, and is poised to reach 33.3 million connections worldwide by 2018.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson