Give your dispensary a competitive edge

It's not easy to be a retailer today: competition is fierce; staffing is a challenge; inflation is squeezing profits; consumer confidence is on a seesaw; and to make matters worse, retailers now need to invest both offline and online to meet modern consumers where they are and cater to their ever-evolving, always-surprising tastes, as McKinsey puts it.

Across industries, the benefits of unifying the customer experience between online and offline retail channels are undeniable. These days, you can’t expect anyone to remain loyal to your brand if you keep forgetting their name, give them a different price for the same product on different channels, or tell them a product is in stock at the shop around the corner when it’s not.

But many retailers are still hesitant to go all-in on the omnichannel shopping experience because they think it’s beyond their reach. According to the National Retail Federation and OSF Digital, the adoption of omnichannel best practices among retailers in North America is barely higher today than when they started keeping track seven years ago (61% vs. 54%). It's one thing for Amazon, Macy’s, Kroger or Home Depot to invest in omnichannel. These top retailers have deep pockets to pull it off. But small and medium-sized retailers don’t have giant budgets or time to experiment and weigh their options. Many are struggling to find the right mix of in-store investments, digital capabilities and martech building blocks (like data onboarding, CDPs, personalization, loyalty programs or advanced analytics) to make the most of the omnichannel opportunity.

Thankfully, new solutions are now available to help smaller retailers bridge the gap, and one of the most promising developments comes in the form of in-store interactive screens. We’re not talking about the digital signage of yore with passive branding messages and bland promotional offers. Today’s crop of screen-led solutions offers retailers a more direct and personal way to connect with the customer, cultivate their loyalty, accelerate sales and create new revenue streams. And as it turns out, some of the first retailers to take advantage of these new capabilities are cannabis dispensaries.

Let’s review how these smart retailers are using interactive screens to deliver best-in-class customer experiences and drive growth.

A portal into the world of cannabis
Dispensaries cater to consumers with a wide range of experiences. Many are first-time buyers, while others are just as knowledgeable as the store’s budtenders. For dispensaries in newly opened markets and MSOs catering to consumers in multiple states, it’s become imperative to have the right tools in place to learn about a shopper’s preferences and customize the retail experience accordingly. That’s why many of them are embracing in-store interactive screens. A frequent patron may use an interactive screen to check out with a QR code and be quickly on their way. A first-timer, on the other hand, may use it to explore available products and narrow down their options before talking to the budtender to finalize their purchase. All the while, POS-connected digital menus keep pricing and product inventory fully updated and deliver tailored promotional offers. Think Amazon or Google, but without the scourge of retargeting.