The cannabis industry has been expanding quite rapidly during the last few years, thanks to an increasing number of jurisdictions dropping their restrictions when it comes to the sale and use of cannabis. This signals a green light for the retailers who have always wanted to enter this market.
Even though starting a physical dispensary in a cannabis-legal country or state is still a wise idea, it’s often filled with various challenges, with the most common being cost, and legal restrictions. That’s where starting an online cannabis dispensary comes in. Not only does it help you avoid these challenges, but it also helps you tap into a wider market.
How Would an Online Cannabis Dispensary Work?
An online cannabis dispensary is just like an ecommerce store that doesn’t have a physical shop. Not every retailer wants or sees the need to have a brick-and-mortar shop. In such a case, their shop would run fully online. Such a setup typically has one major challenge: you have to prove your worth to the customers for them to trust you.
To navigate this problem as a cannabis retailer, the best solution would be to open your cannabis dispensary through an already trusted supplier like Dr. Green. The best part about dropshipping with such an outstanding supplier is they won’t offer the bare minimum. For instance, Dr. Green offers some of the most unique strains created by renowned experts and endorsed by international icons like Rick Ross and Eddie Hall.
What’s more, you wouldn’t have to worry about any complex processes other than setting up your front-end store and finding customers. By contrast, starting an online cannabis dispensary from scratch would require you to worry about the whole process, from creating a website to navigating the legal framework.
Starting Your Online Cannabis Dispensary the Traditional Way
As mentioned earlier the process of opening an online cannabis dispensary by yourself is a tad more complicated, but not everyone goes through the same agony. If you’d like to start your online cannabis dispensary the traditional way, here’s how to go about that:
Step 1: Create Your Ecommerce Website
As far as setting up your online cannabis dispensary goes, you will have multiple options to pick from. What you go for depends largely on your budget and needs. You can choose from three common options:
i. Sell your products on 3rd-party cannabis marketplaces.
ii. Use online display menus on iFrame-hosted websites.
iii. Create an independent and customised ecommerce platform.
The most preferred option for companies looking to control the brand experience fully would be creating an independent ecommerce website. That’s because you will own the custom URL, web content, and integrations fully, thus you can tweak them to meet consumer preferences.
Step 2: Ensure the Ecommerce Solution Has the Features You Need
Cannabis retail is quite different from other industries due to the stringent requirements and various restrictions. Additionally, you want to ensure your customers have the best experience.
For this reason, you should ensure your ecommerce solution has the features that promote such needs. Some of those features would be:
- Features that enhance the user experience such as customizability and ease of use.
- Custom CMS that helps with further customization
- Compliance-related features and integration with tracking systems
- Advanced analytics and reporting to support decision-making
- Advanced inventory management and payment processing
Step 3: Choose the Right Delivery Model
There are a couple of delivery models to choose from, and each has its advantages and challenges. If you’re focused on an exclusively online experience, you would have to choose the pizza delivery model, since this one requires the orders to come in for the packages to be sent out.
Step 4: Pick the Right Delivery Software
Your delivery software must be compatible with the delivery model you chose.
In this case, you want delivery software that is not only easy to integrate with your ecommerce website but also supports inventory tracking and real-time order tracking.
Make Your Entry a Lot Easier With Dr. Green
There is no denying that becoming a cannabis retailer isn’t as easy as it may look at first, even if you live in a country where weed is legal. While opening an independent online cannabis dispensary sounds like a good idea, there will be multiple challenges you have to overcome, first is setting up your business successfully, but you also need customers to trust you if you’re going to make any progress.
Why not make your work easier by dropshipping? Dr. Green handles everything else so you only have to worry about creating your front-end store and promoting it to get customers. Want to know more about how this works? Visit drgreennft.com to find out.