Opening Day Food & Beverage Revenue Increased by 45% at a $21/per cap
Objective
Pensacola Blue Wahoos (Pensacola) considered upgrading to a cloud-based system to manage their variety of dining option concessions, in-seat ordering, and casual dining areas.
Pensacola’s legacy system was limiting their ability to capture all potential sales and the cumbersome back-of-house capabilities were operationally inefficient. Pensacola also needed the ability to handle pricing changes on-the-fly and support enhanced security measures.
Solutions
While they expected some users to start playing with their phones and smartwatches, neither they nor we expected just how high adoption would be: a whopping 41 percent of all transactions in 2018 were tap-based, 9.3x higher than the national average.
Pensacola replaced their previous POS with Bypass’s cloud-based solution that allowed for remote operation management. Bypass implemented the unified system with an upgrade to their full stadium’s operations concessions POS hardware, in-seat ordering, standsheets, and integrated Givex stored value.
Bypass’s offering promised to handle high capacity ordering with no system downtime, the ability to add/update features easily, and straightforward onsite maintenance, all of which were difficulties for Pensacola in the past. To implement the solution, Bypass worked seamlessly alongside concessionaire RS3 to quickly set up the new platform that will enable future scaling.
Bypass also offered the ability to improve EMV transaction speeds to under 3 seconds during peak load periods to serve more Pensacola’s fans all without sacrificing security and compliance.
“As far as the POS system itself, the terminals are about as intuitive as it gets, and the user interface is a breeze to navigate for our employees.” – Colin Verge Concessions Manager Pensacola Blue Wahoos
Results
After Bypass’s implementation, Pensacola quickly saw groundbreaking performance during the start of their season.
Accelerated Revenue
On Opening Day 2019, food and beverage revenue increased by 45% compared to the previous year’s opening day. Normalized for attendance, Pensacola saw a $21 per capita, shattering their expectations and the standard across minor league baseball stadiums.
Although there were other factors at play, Bypass’s integrated system significantly contributed to customers being served more efficiently and at greater scale, both leading to an increase in revenue. Leveraging Clover Flex also gave Pensacola the ability to provide service anywhere in the stadium while still accepting all forms of payment EMV, Swipe, NFC (mobile wallets) and Tabs.
Simplified Operations
Pensacola was also pleased with the ease of installation and service that Bypass provided leading up to the season opener. The training required was minimal and not complicated for the stadium’s staff.
“AFTER MANY YEARS OF ‘DEALING WITH’ OTHER POS’S, WHETHER IT BE INSTALL, SUPPORT, OR JUST REGULAR USE, IT HAS BEEN A BREATH OF FRESH AIR TO WORK WITH BYPASS, WHO ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT GETTING US SET UP AND RUNNING AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.” – COLIN VERGE, CONCESSIONS MANAGER, PENSACOLA BLUE WAHOOS
FUTURE EXPANSION & INNOVATION
Pensacola will continue to leverage Bypass for easy scaling as they pioneer the minor league baseball stadium experience. Pensacola views Bypass as a valued strategic partner, bringing expansion and innovation opportunities to the table that were not previously possible.