While the cannabis industry is experiencing rapid growth and the product is in hot demand, dispensary sales are not without challenges. With the continued expansion of legalization and more and more dispensaries opening up, the market is becoming increasingly competitive.
To boost dispensary sales, there are a few key factors you need to consider.
Growing Your Customer Base
As the market becomes more saturated with retailers selling recreational and medicinal cannabis, dispensary owners are facing the challenge of getting customers through their door. How do you stand apart and ensure that customers choose your dispensary over the one a few blocks down the road?
Marketing
The great thing about marketing cannabis is that there’s already a high level of consumer awareness and demand. You don’t need to use marketing to educate customers about the product; they already want to buy it. The trick is convincing them to buy it from you.
However, the customer base is still growing with plenty of opportunities to expand to new audience segments. The stigma that previously surrounded cannabis is diminishing every year. That means that to boost dispensary sales, you should implement some marketing focused on education and dispelling myths and any concerns this new customer base might have.
Marketing is challenging for dispensaries because there are legal limitations to what advertising platforms are available. But there are still plenty of ways to build a robust and effective marketing strategy for your dispensary.
Data and Experience
It can often be a lot of trial and error in the beginning. If you’re a well-established dispensary, you have the advantage of experience. And even if you’re just opening up, you can still utilize historical trends in the market to your advantage.
And ask your customers what they want or expect from a quality dispensary experience. Listen to their feedback and implement it to develop a solid customer experience.
Customer loyalty
A customer loyalty program is a great way to retain your customer base. Customer acquisition is expensive; take that extra step to reward customer loyalty with programs that offer freebies or discounts to repeat customers. This can also help boost dispensary sales by incentivizing your customers to buy more and visit more frequently.
Motivate your customers to buy more
Once you’ve created a strategy to acquire and retain customers, the next step to increasing your dispensary sales is to increase the purchase value. You can do this in a few ways, with the help of quality salesmanship, exceptional customer service, and exclusivity.
Salesmanship
Your staff, the cannabis consultants, in particular, need to be great salespeople. Take opportunities to add accessories, pre-rolls, or small quantities of new products for example. Educating long-time or new customers about unique or premium varieties can go a long way.
Exceptional customer service
This is the cornerstone of any successful business. When it comes to cannabis, cultivating trust and rapport with both new and existing customers will make them more receptive to suggestions when upselling, and it will also ensure they continue coming back to you.
Exclusivity
One way you can increase dispensary sales is to offer a product or product line that is exclusive to your shop. The marketing power of being able to say that a customer can only get “x” product here is significant.
If you have a relationship with a grower, you could potentially leverage that to your advantage by getting exclusive first access to a new strain. Or partner with a local artisan to sell custom pipes. This can always be a great opportunity to reward customers who participate in your loyalty program.
How Do You Boost Dispensary Sales?
Ultimately, it comes down to developing a comprehensive strategy to acquire and retain customers. Define your target audiences and determine how you plan to market your dispensary to each segment.
Then, ensure you have a well-trained staff that is equipped with the skills and knowledge to implement and act on that strategy. They should be engaging with the customers, building trust, and identifying every opportunity to upsell and capture repeat business.
It’s important to remember that this is an ongoing process. As you grow, and as competition increases around you, you’ll need to constantly evaluate and adjust to maintain any progress.
Technology is essential to boosting cannabis sales
Cannabis retailers face a unique set of business challenges, like cash management, inventory management, and marketing restrictions.
To boost sales and maintain streamlined operations in your canna-business, you’ll need the best cannabis-specific POS available. Industry-leading Point of Sale, Anthea powered by RCS, is a comprehensive dispensary retail management system that will provide you with all of the customer insights you need to guide your digital marketing strategies, manage cash flow, power effective customer loyalty programs, and stay on top of inventory in real-time. Learn more about how Anthea will help your canna-business to boost sales and deliver exceptional customer service by requesting your free demo today.
