Increasing Tab Size By 17%: Seattle Cider Company’s POS Success Story

As one of just 900 cideries in the country, Seattle Cider Company takes their “Not your standard cider” slogan seriously. Having released the Odyssey Imperial Cider last year— a surprising 8.4% ABV blend that showcases the refreshing Washington-grown apple flavor—this Pacific Northwest cidery now has the pedal to the floor on a whole new category altogether: Light Cider. 

“We’ve carved our biggest successes in the space of being a ‘beer-drinker’s cider’ and a ‘wine drinker’s cider’. We’re still here bridging the gap between beer and wine, but with Light, we aim to disrupt the massive light beer subcategory with our distinctly craft take,” said Felix Madrid, General Manager. 

The Pain Point

It’s no doubt Seattle Cider is a trailblazer in their space. But up until last year, educating guests on their innovative product line in the tasting room was being held back by their point of sale system:

• Inconvenient card-holding prevented large tab sizes: The burden of keeping credit cards behind the bar for open tabs prevented guests from being able to order from the third-party food venders on-site. That inconvenience prevented guests from keeping their tabs open.
• No offline mode forced a loss of sales: In a frequently stormy area, Seattle Cider battled the loss of internet connection often, and their previous POS couldn’t support offline transactions. They instead were taking losses on unclosed tabs.
• Unwieldy tech decreased service efficiency: With limited staff and a clunky POS interface, servers were forced to spend an unnecessarily long time ringing up tabs accurately. 

The POS Solution

Tired of diminishing profit potential due to cumbersome tech, Seattle Cider made the switch to Arryved POS in late 2021. “The more innocuous [your POS] can be, the better everything is!” beamed Maura Hardman, who oversees the tasting room and also runs marketing and PR for the cider company. “When people are able to really easily, seamlessly start a tab, you see overall increases in your tab size.”

And the numbers don’t lie. Since switching their POS to Arryved, Seattle Cider has seen the average tab size increase by $2.82, or 16.7%!¹ 

Maura credits this success in part because of Arryved’s card on file feature, which allows staff to swipe credit cards and hand them right back to guests, all while keeping their tabs open. By eliminating the credit card rolodex inconvenience entirely, cider drinkers were not only more likely to start a tab in the first place, they also stuck around longer and ordered more.

Offline mode was a saving grace for Seattle Cider, too. Now, if the cidery loses power, they can continue servicing their thirsty customers. Once power is restored, all tab data collected offline syncs with their backend reporting again.

Maura’s service staff works with ease knowing the Arryved team is there to support them, too. “Your customer service is like no other,” Maura told us of 7 days/week support. “And you don’t hide your phone number!” With helpful how-to guides accessible on the Arryved Portal, as well as real humans that are readily available via phone or email, the Seattle Cider team knows they can solve any problem they run into quickly and easily. 

“Time is money for everyone, you know?” We couldn’t agree with Maura more. And with intuitive tech that reduces service friction in the tasting room, Seattle Cider is saving time, increasing profits, and finally having the space to educate their guests about what’s new and upcoming on their tasty tap lines. 

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1. We’ve compared Seattle Cider’s tab size from pre-shutdown sales (January 2019-March 2020) to sales after implementing Arryved (September 2021-March 2022). We chose not to compare tab size during the shutdown because the company had a $40 delivery minimum per order, which was skewing the data sample.