How Urban Garden increases its profits with Lightspeed

Urban Garden may only have 15 parking spaces, but it can see up to 1,000 customers a day.

That wouldn’t be possible without using Lightspeed for its point of sale system, says owner Jessica Beck.

“We have definitely had a lot of growth with Lightspeed in terms of understanding what to sell and getting customers through the checkout as quickly as possible,” she says.

The 2-acre seasonal garden center in Louisville, Colorado, which opened in 2007, sells annuals, perennials and houseplants from April until the end of June. It sells Christmas trees and operates as a Christmas shop from November until the end of December.

Beck and her husband Eric run the business, with the help of a small seasonal team.

Urban Garden began working with Lightspeed just over two years ago, after its previous POS system ended operations. Beck explored a few other POS systems, but none of them felt like the right fit for her business.

Then, she found Lightspeed.

“They give you a free trial, and I was able to upload all of my inventory, which is around 8,000 SKUs, which is really big because a lot of trials won't let you do that,” Beck says. “I was able to actually do everything I could do as if I was already a customer, and that was huge because I actually could see it working.”

The only thing she couldn't see in the trial was credit card processing, “but they assured me it was going to be fast,” says Beck, who also noted they had the lowest credit card rates she could find at 2.6% plus 10 cents a card.

Lightspeed also included American Express, which Urban Garden had previously stopped accepting due to high fees.

Going with Lightspeed was a no-brainer at that point, Beck said.

“We were getting people through the door so much faster. It was really funny because we thought we were actually less busy because we didn't have a line. And then we realized, oh my gosh, we don't have a line because it's so much quicker than it was on our old system,” she says.

The faster checkout process — and subsequent increases in sales and customers — allowed for Urban Garden to add another register, which Lightspeed helped Beck set up in less than a week.

“We can run the credit card processor probably about five times to 10 times faster than our old system was,” Beck adds. “If you just add that up throughout the day — we actually did it — it was saving us 30 minutes a day in checkout time. We were able to push through so many more people through the day.”

Beck appreciates Lightspeed’s customer service, specifically highlighting a chat function on its website. She also likes the mobile-friendly application, which allows her to change prices, add discounts and check sales figures all from her phone.

“It's all just so much faster,” she says. “There's no way that it hasn't affected our bottom dollar just from the speed and the consistency of it.”

For more information, visit Lightspeed’s website.