Introducing Lightspeed eCom (E-Series)
Welcome to Lightspeed eCom (E-Series), an integration of Ecwid, e-commerce platform, with Retail POS. Whether you're aiming to establish an online presence, create a stylish website, or boost product sales on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, Lightspeed eCom has you covered.
In this guide, we will break down what E-Series is, how it works with X-Series, and its key features.
E-Series overview
Lightspeed eCom, or E-Series, formerly Ecwid, a best-in-class global eCommerce company, joined the Lightspeed family a while ago. While we are working on fully integrating Ecwid into the Lightspeed ecosystem, you might see the Ecwid brand name here and there in the Help Center docs, backend admin, etc. Not to worry, it will fade away in time, and you’ll get the best seamless experience working with Lightspeed products.
Meanwhile, you can explore our E-Series (Ecwid) Help Center to see in detail what E-Series has to offer. Here are a few things:
- you can instantly sync your product catalog, customers, and settings from X-Series;
- create a beautiful and fast website in minutes for free;
- expand your business to sell on social media and marketplaces;
- sell subscriptions, gift cards, services;
- get your own mobile app.
Better yet, E-Series Business Plan is included in all Retail POS Core and Plus plan subscriptions, so you don't have to pay anything extra, and you can easily try it out! Learn more: Features, pricing, and support options for eCom (E-Series) →
Ways to sell
With E-Series, you can expand your retail business online. You have the choice to create a full-fledged ecommerce website or simply showcase your products through different online sales channels. It's flexible, so you can choose one or several options that suit you best.
| Sales channel | Description |
| Website with online store | Set up a full-featured online store with E-Series sitebuilder or embed your storefront on any existing website (built on Wordpress, Wix, Squarespace, etc.). |
| Website with product catalog | You can just showcase your products or services without accepting payments online. |
| Facebook store | Sync your products to your Facebook page and sell through the Shop tab. |
| Instagram shop | By connecting your eCom (E-Series) store with Instagram, you can sell your products on Instagram by tagging them in posts and stories so your customers can proceed to checkout without leaving the Instagram app. |
| TikTok | By connecting your store with TikTok, you can sync your product catalog to and use TikTok Shopping to show products in your TikTok profile and tag items in videos. |
| Linkup | Linkup is a landing page showcasing all your links in one place through clickable buttons or icons. You can add social media and other external links along with shoppable links to products from your eCom store. |
| Buy Button | Buy Button is a product card and checkout that can be embedded on an external website or blog with a piece of code. |
| ShopApp | With ShopApp®, you can turn your eCom store into a mobile app so your customers can install it on their phones and always have access to your products right from the phone screen. We offer both apps for iOS and Android designed to provide the best experience on mobile. |
How it works
With E-Series, you will be able to create your own online web presence to sell all your products or specific categories of products from all/or selected locations. All products and orders are synced, so you can manage your business in one place, your Lightspeed backoffice.
Along with physical products, you can also sell services and digital downloads.
Website/Store setup and management
Once Retail POS is connected with eCom, you can partly (for now) set up your store in X-series backoffice, but you’ll find more robust settings for shipping and payment methods, taxes, and design in the E-series backoffice (we call it admin panel). From there, you can also add team members to help manage your store and get Ecwid (E-series) mobile apps for iOS and Android.
Learn more: Getting started with eCom (E-Series Help Center) →
Getting paid
After you create a store, you can accept cash or online payments. If you want to take credit cards online, you can use Lightspeed Payments, Stripe, Square, PayPal, or any of the other methods of your choice.
If your customers prefer to pay when they receive the order, you can set up a cash on delivery payment method. This way, your customers will be able to place an order in your store and pay later. You can also configure other offline methods.
If you have the Retail POS Loyalty program enabled in your POS, it will be automatically enabled for your online store.
Learn more about accepting payments (E-Series Help Center) →
Shipping
If you sell physical products, you must decide how to distribute your products to your customers. You may rely on a carrier company like USPS or FedEx, hire a courier, or deliver your products yourself. There are quite a few scenarios of pricing strategy for shipping. You can offer free shipping, charge real-time carrier rates, charge a flat rate, or offer in-store pickup. In any case, it is necessary to charge your customers a fee that will cover the costs of the products' shipping.
Read more about choosing a shipping strategy (E-Series Help Center) →
Orders
When you receive an order, it will automatically synchronize to Retail POS and appear on both the Sales history (Sell > Sales history) and Fulfillments (Inventory > Fulfillments) pages. From there, you can further process and fulfill the order.
Read more about managing orders →
E-Series key features
E-Series is a powerful tool with lots of features not only for showcasing your products online but also for promoting them on different channels like Facebook ads, Google ads, etc.
Check out all E-Series features →
Fully compatible with any site builder
You can use E-Series sitebuilder to create a website tailored to your business or embed your store on any existing website (built on Wordpress, Wix, Squarespace, etc.) or even on several websites at the same time while managing all online and offline sales in one central location — your Lightspeed admin panel.
Learn more about E-Series sitebuilder (Ecwid Help Center) and adding store to any sitebuilder (Ecwid Help Center) →
Variety of customization options
You can easily customize your store look and functionality to match your brand: from tweaking built-in design settings to using additional apps to using API for advanced integrations.
Facebook and Instagram store
You can sync your store catalog with Facebook and Instagram in a few clicks, so you are able to sell products right on those platforms, and even more – promote and manage all your Facebook advertising campaigns right from your Lightspeed eCom control panel.
Multilingual catalog
You can have your website and store in different languages so your customers can shop in their preferred one. You just need to add translations of your catalog, including product names, descriptions, options, category names, and everything else will be automatically translated — the texts on buttons, invoices, and email notifications.
Learn more about translating your catalog (Ecwid Help Center) →
Recurring subscriptions
With subscriptions, you can accept recurring payments for one or more items in your store. It's the best way to sell beauty boxes, meal kits, regular services, and more. You can also take recurring donations using this feature.
Learn more about recurring subscriptions (Ecwid Help Center) →
Pre-orders
You can let your customers order products that are currently out of stock. These can be items that are temporarily sold out or those that you only plan to launch.
Learn more about taking pre-orders (Eсwid Help Center) →
Robust tax settings
E-Series offers robust and accurate tax settings. For example, you can set up different tax rules per product type (food/alcohol/baby clothes) and different city/county/state tax in the US per address.
Learn more about taxes (Ecwid Help Center) →
Automated marketing
When your customers leave a cart with products in it or buy in your store more than once, you can send promotional notifications. Those notifications are emails that you set up once in settings, and then they are sent out automatically.
More about automated emails (Ecwid Help Center) →