Shopify → Lightspeed: inventory checklist before you rebuy

Who this is for: independent specialty retailers — including vape and smoke shops — who are consolidating in-store POS onto Lightspeed Retail X-Series after a Shopify ecommerce disruption, a dual-system mess, or a deliberate move off Shopify for retail ops.

Who this is not for: pure online shops picking a new storefront. Most pure-ecommerce migrations right now go toward self-hosted carts (WooCommerce and peers), not Lightspeed. Lightspeed is a retail POS first. If you only sell online, treat this page as optional background.

Last verified: 2026-07-16.

I run an independent BC vape shop on Lightspeed X-Series at the counter. I am not a Lightspeed partner, not a migration agency, and not paid by any platform named here. This is an operator checklist for the inventory work that actually burns cash during a platform change.

The real risk during a POS/ecommerce change

Platform migrations get sold as catalog imports and redirect maps. The silent cash burn is different:

1. You rebuy the wrong stuff because last-90-day velocity lived in Shopify Analytics and never made it into the new buy sheet.
2. Dead stock from the old channel stays priced as “working inventory” in the new POS.
3. SKU drift — same product under three codes across Shopify variants, old POS, and supplier sheets — so every report lies a little.
4. You pay for Plus-tier reporting you do not need yet, or you skip reporting entirely and buy on gut for six months.

ShelfReport exists for that gap: Lightspeed’s own docs put dusty inventory / sell-through style reports on higher plans, while Core still exports the raw CSVs. Use the exports; do not fly blind.

Day 0 — before you cut anything over

1. Export Shopify while you still can

From Shopify admin, while the store is still accessible:

• Products → Export → all products, CSV
• Orders → Export → enough history for taxes and velocity (90 days minimum, 12 months if you can)
• Customers only if you legally need them for your own CRM — do not upload customer files into random tools

Store copies offline. If a store is suspended later, extraction gets harder.

2. Export Lightspeed the same day you go live

On X-Series:

• Product list export (includes supply price / cost and inventory columns on typical accounts)
• Sales history in date-bounded chunks (watch the ~1,000-sale export cap — stack months)
• Optional: replenishment / inventory reports for cross-check

Walkthroughs live in the Lightspeed CSV export guide.

3. Freeze reordering for 48 hours if you can

One quiet rule that saves more money than any dashboard: do not place a full restock until dead stock and velocity are visible in one place. Emergency outs only.

Day 1 — one joinable inventory truth

You need three files that share a SKU:

File	Purpose
Products (with cost)	On-hand × cost = cash trapped
Inventory snapshot	What is actually on the shelf now
Sales history (≥90 days)	Last sale + velocity

Cost coverage is the make-or-break field. Lightspeed calls cost Supply price. Shopify calls it Cost per item. If either export is blank for a big share of SKUs, every “cash trapped” number is a floor, not a headline — and you should fix costs in the POS before you trust a buy sheet.

Do not upload customer, staff, or payment columns into third-party tools. Good tools reject those headers; still, strip them if you can.

Day 1 — run a dead-stock / reorder pass

Whether you use a spreadsheet or ShelfReport’s free scan, force these decisions in writing:

1. Don’t buy / clear — no sale in 90+ days with meaningful on-hand dollars
2. Buy now — will stock out before the next supplier cycle at recent velocity
3. Fix data first — missing cost, duplicate SKU, negative stock
4. Fix online — in-store sellers with no (or broken) web listing, if you still sell online elsewhere

If you are on Lightspeed Core, remember: the dedicated dusty inventory, inventory sell-through, and recently out-of-stock reports are plan-gated in Lightspeed’s reporting matrix. Core’s inventory performance report does include a sell-through rate, but it is not the same as a SKU-level dead-stock cash and action sheet. Your CSV exports are not plan-gated. That is the wedge for a single-store operator who wants a defensible cash decision sheet without moving to Plus.

Week 1 — migration hygiene that protects margin

• One SKU authority. Pick Lightspeed as source of truth for on-hand. Map old Shopify variant SKUs deliberately; do not “close enough” them.
• Discontinued means discontinued. Archived Shopify products should not generate reorders.
• Supplier MOQ vs case pack. Reorder suggestions without pack size become fiction the first time a rep visits.
• Payments are a separate project. Moving POS does not solve high-risk ecommerce processing. See vape payment processing 2026 if that is your lane.
• Canada vs US policy risk is not the same. Shopify’s 2026 ENDS removals were driven by US AG pressure with a ~July 7–8 removal window for US merchants. Canadian scope remains a separate question — read the Canada note before you burn a weekend migrating for the wrong reason.

What not to do

• Do not panic-migrate a healthy Canadian Shopify storefront on rumour alone.
• Do not buy Lightspeed Plus on day one only for dusty inventory if a CSV report covers the decision.
• Do not trust analytics rollups (GMROI dashboards, category summaries) as a substitute for per-SKU product + inventory + sales exports when you are pricing dead stock.
• Do not hand a vendor write access to your POS for “reporting.”

A 30-minute operator path

1. Export Lightspeed products + inventory + ≥90 days sales (or Shopify equivalents if you are mid-move).
2. Run a free inventory scan — ShelfReport is built for these exact headers.
3. Print or PDF the action list: clear / buy / fix data.
4. Place only the Buy now lines this week.
5. Schedule one clear-out for the dead-stock dollars figure — discount, return-to-vendor, or write-down with your bookkeeper.

Who I am

Independent BC retailer, Lightspeed X-Series at the counter, not affiliated with Lightspeed Commerce Inc. or Shopify Inc. Reports and checklists here are informational — not legal, tax, or financial advice. Verify plan features and export paths in your own Lightspeed account; UI labels move.

Related:

• Lightspeed dead stock on Core plan
• Cash leakage in small retail
• Vape / smoke shop doorway