ZQ Zaid Qayyum
Case 05 Retail Operations2024Sample build Representative scenario: specialty retailer with online + in-store, US

Lightspeed Retail + Stripe order flow for a US specialty store

Sample build: a unified order flow for a representative specialty retailer running Lightspeed Retail in-store and Stripe for online and custom orders. Stock, sales and customer history live in one place regardless of channel.

Scenario
Representative specialty retailer with online + in-store, US
Role
Integrations Engineer
Year
2024
Hero stack
Lightspeed Retail · Stripe

The scenario.

A specialty retailer where in-store sales go through Lightspeed and online and custom orders go through a Stripe-powered checkout that doesn't talk to Lightspeed. Stock counts drift constantly. Customer A buying online and customer A walking into the store look like two different customers. Refunds processed in one system never reflect in the other, and the owner reconciles weekly by hand.

How it's built.

  1. Stripe-Lightspeed bridgeA Stripe → Lightspeed bridge: every charge.succeeded creates a Lightspeed sale tied to the matching customer record (or creates the customer if new).
  2. Single stock truthStock decrements happen in Lightspeed regardless of channel: Lightspeed remains the single source of inventory truth.
  3. Refund flowRefund flow: Stripe refund → Lightspeed sale void or partial credit, with the same audit trail visible in either system.
  4. Customer dedupeCustomer dedupe: matched email plus phone across systems so the customer profile shows full purchase history regardless of where they bought.
  5. Owner dashboardA small operations dashboard for the owner: real-time stock vs sales, channel mix, slow movers, top customers; everything pulled from Lightspeed's API.

What makes it tick.

  • Single inventory source: no more "online says we have it, store says we don't".
  • Customer history merged across channels: staff in store can see what a customer bought online.
  • Reorder thresholds calculated against combined channel velocity, not just in-store.
  • Stripe metadata carries the Lightspeed sale ID so any payment can be traced back to its retail record.

What it's designed to change.

This pattern is designed to bring stock variance at quarterly counts from around 6% to under 1%, take online refunds out of manual ledger entry, and give the owner back roughly 3 hours per week of cross-system reconciliation. With merged history, in-store staff can recommend products based on what a customer bought online. These are design targets for the modeled scenario, not measured client results.

design target, quarterly counts 6% → <1% stock variance
design target 3h/wk cross-system reconciliation, back

Tools in the build.

  • Lightspeed Retail API
  • Stripe API
  • PHP
  • MySQL
  • Webhooks
  • Custom dashboard

Got a workflow bottleneck?

If this looks like the kind of system your business needs, the fastest way to start is a short discovery call.

Book a discovery call