Cannabis Ecommerce has been moving fast, and there are ways to make it work better.
Marijuana and online ecommerce
As a society that has recovered from a pandemic, disruption is an ever-present reality.
The cannabis sector, in particular, is particularly susceptible to the unanticipated chances for development and innovation that are created by rapid disruptions. This category continues to demonstrate its legitimacy and resiliency, and it is positioned to survive in an economy that is driven by digital technology. The market growth of this category is anticipated to reach $73.6 billion by the year 2027. However, they cannot accomplish this on their own.
Be Flexible
Innovations in the cannabis industry are not surprised by the introduction of new rules or the quick changes in customer behavior. As a matter of fact, cannabis companies may have an advantage over businesses that have never been forced to adjust to significant changes because they have been continuously adapting for decades. On the other hand, in contrast to the majority of consumer goods, the process of purchasing and selling THC and CBD is subject to a convoluted web of limitations and rules that bring about significant legal repercussions, particularly when conducted online. In a nutshell, it is the kind of work that must be carried out in the correct manner. As a result, it ought to be dealt by a group of subject matter specialists.
Are you looking for advice on how to set up an online cannabis seller business? In the process of constructing your digital dispensary, the following three pillars should be your top priorities:
Consistency of the Brand
Beautiful branding is abundant in the cannabis industry, and there is no shortage of it. Leaders in the business, such as our partner Kiva Confections, have contributed to elevating the industry above the traditional stoner stereotypes by providing attractive packaging and material. However, if you solely spend in physical branding, you will not be successful since you will not have the digital infrastructure to maintain customer loyalty over time.
Within the context of our society’s growing aversion to taking risks, your website provides the ultimate opportunity to cultivate brand loyalty.
If you have a quality product but your website does not match the values and graphics of your brand, this creates a disconnect that leads to misunderstanding and erodes trust in your company. Companies in the cannabis industry that are able to successfully bridge the gap between the real and digital worlds have a competitive advantage over newcomers who are showy but lack substance.
Easy To Use Menus
This is not a treasure hunt; nevertheless, it is a store. Your responsibility is to anticipate what your visitors are expecting to see and to make it simple for them to locate what they are looking for. Err on the side of simplicity whenever you are unsure of what to do, but keep an eye out for possibilities to surprise and delight along the way.
Listed below are four suggestions that can assist you in developing a great digital experience that will encourage meaningful connections with your customers:
At every stage, check to see if it is compatible with mobile devices. Leaving this process to the very end is going to be expensive in the long term.
The stock photography trap should be avoided. As an alternative, you should make use of captivating pictures to demonstrate the quality of your products.
If you want to express your value propositions and brand story, you should include helpful material.
To provide a smooth experience for the customer, adopt designs that are uncluttered and easy to use.
Clarity and openness to the public
Unfortunately, the era of magic brownies has come to an end, and there is no turning back. As a result of having to endure decades of irregular dosing and poor ingredients, consumers of cannabis are becoming increasingly hungry for clarity. They are interested in knowing everything about the food they are putting into their body, including how it was manufactured and how it will influence them. If any and all cannabis brands want to succeed in the year 2020 and beyond, they should make satisfying the desire of their customers for clarity their top goal.
The Descriptions of Products
Although writing strategic descriptions for each product may appear to be a laborious task, such descriptions are an important component of your sales pitch. This piece of writing not only makes a direct contribution to search engine optimization (SEO), but it also provides an opportunity to educate, engage, and expand on the features and benefits of your offering. It is important to keep in mind that legal constraints are still in effect, so you should avoid making any health claims that are not supported by evidence.
Online budtender service
The pandemic has hastened the transition away from traditional dispensaries and toward cannabis delivery services. As a result, customers are need to go online in order to retrieve information that they had previously obtained from budtenders. In order to fill this knowledge gap, we developed a specialized Virtual Budtender search function for Kiva. This feature makes recommendations for particular goods based on the effects that are sought and the circumstances that are actually occurring.
Technology of the Highest Quality
Lastly, but most essential, your online cannabis store need to operate without a single glitch. Obviously, this is easier to say than it is to do when one takes into consideration the extensive list of legal rules and integrations that take place behind the scenes. These include inventory, apps, payments, privacy, regionality, ID verifications, and a great deal more.
Because each of these difficult difficulties has a direct influence on the user experience as well as the bottom line, a compelling technological solution is required for each of them. There are a number of factors that contribute to poor bounce rates and shopping cart abandonment, the most significant of which are slow page load times and other technical issues that can be solved. While it is crucial to adopt the finest user experience standards for online commerce, it is also important to keep the following cannabis-specific concerns in mind:
Legal Stuff
Team members from the product, development, creative, and legal departments need to work closely together in order to successfully launch a cannabis platform. For the purpose of ensuring compliance, further attention is required for everything from payments to privacy restrictions to product descriptions. In the future, problems and expensive fixes can be avoided by conducting continuous legal review throughout the process until it is completed.
The functionality of “Near Me Searches”
The establishment of reliable channels via which customers may locate your products is an essential step in maintaining their allegiance to your brand over time. In the event that a buyer is unable to locate your product when it is time to make a purchase, they will be compelled to get something else, regardless of how much they adore your goods. By implementing map and inventory technology that is both scalable for internal teams and user-friendly for site visitors, you will be able to handle this issue.
Tech Stacks
E-commerce websites that deal in cannabis need to have additional back-end interfaces with sales platforms and local partners like dispensaries and delivery services because of the complexity of these websites. Therefore, it is essential to build an effective technological stack that does not result in loops, lags, or interruptions in the trip that your customers take with your company.
Payment Options
All direct-to-consumer (DTC) websites need additional implementation in order to authorize payments, but the process is more challenging for cannabis transactions. Considering that the majority of conventional e-commerce payment methods do not permit cannabis-related transitions at the moment, you will need some time to investigate alternative payment apps and technologies that provide your customers with a streamlined and secure method of making payments.
Pickup and Delivery Options
Not only do you need to think about how clients will make purchases and pay for them online, but you also need to think about how they will acquire the product. Using Kiva’s own information as well as those of its partners, we worked together to develop public-facing application programming interfaces (APIs) that retrieve dispensaries and delivery services that are located in close proximity to the user.
Cannabis Software
At this time, cannabis businesses in Canada also have the advantage of leveraging Shopify’s e-commerce and point-of-sale (POS) services. This presents an intriguing opportunity for businesses in the United States in the event that cannabis is legalized on a federal level. Companies that are prepared to embrace this technology as soon as it becomes available will likely gain a timely edge over their competitors who are less prepared in the race to provide cannabis goods directly to consumers in the United States.
E-commerce is projected to account for 22% of all retail sales across the globe by the year 2023. In the event that cannabis follows the similar pattern, businesses that make investments in sales technology at the present time may be able to prevent losing roughly a fourth of their potential revenues in a few years from now.
At a time and in a place in history where change is the only thing that is consistently occurring, it is time for us to collaborate in order to finally make it simple for people who use cannabis to shop, purchase, and enjoy their high in a secure environment.
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