Friday has become many dispensaries’ highest sales day across the nation. With the weekend just getting started and many people’s payday being at the end of the week, Fridays continue to provide cannabis retailers with increased customer traffic and the opportunity to capitalize on a predictable sales uptick.
For example, Massachusetts’ adult-use sales on Friday, June 3, represented 19.2% of the total sales for that week, outpacing Saturday (16.8%), the second-highest sales day, and Thursday (14.5%), the third-highest day, according to data from the state’s Cannabis Control Commission. Monday, the lowest sales day, represented 10.8% of the total volume for that week. Those trends continued the following two weeks.
In order to make the most of your Friday sales uptick, Nick Jack, chief operating officer, with national cannabis brand Diego Pellicer Worldwide, whose retail operation in Denver was recently rebranded to Frost Exotic Cannabis, offers five tips his company uses to take advantage of anticipated demand spikes and to keep those transactions increasing.
“Being busy is no excuse to lack on providing a top-tier service and maximizing the consumer journey to the best of your ability,” Jack said.
1. Staff store accordingly
Having the dispensary staffed enough to handle those big Friday rushes is key to having an efficient shopping and checkout process for customers. Being able to handle rushes and get customers in and out will allow even more sales. Jack suggests using a heat map in order to plan out the busiest times of the day and decide when to have more or less staff in the store.
“It’s great to be busy, but you want to ensure that you’re providing a quality experience to lock down that return customer,” Jack said. “If your customers are coming in and receiving slow/poor service on Fridays, your Fridays will eventually become less busy as consumers will opt to shop somewhere else that’s staffed accordingly.”
2. Schedule pop-ups
Having pop-ups and different companies come in to showcase their cannabis products helps both the staff and the customers. It alleviates staff during big Friday rushes as well as gives customers an opportunity to try other products from different companies.
“Schedule pop-ups with great vendors during these busy times; having a rep from another company come in to showcase and sell their products will not only help alleviate the staff during the busy rushes, but they will often offer you better COGS [cost of goods sold] during their time spent doing the pop-up and you have an opportunity to take advantage of increased profit margins,” Jack said. “Additionally, it’s another touchpoint that’s unique to your customer journey and can be rotated weekly, keeping the touchpoint fresh and exciting. Market this!”
3. Make sure your team is on the same page
Having a team that knows what’s going on within the store and is on the same page using different sales tactics is key to being able to sell a lot and ensures everyone knows what’s going on.
“Conduct a couple huddle-ups throughout the day to ensure your team understands what their sales goals are for the day, focus on high margin products and make sure your inventory par levels are locked and loaded on Thursdays, so you’re fully prepared for Friday and busy weekend,” Jack said. “Keep in mind, customers love to buy, but don’t always love being sold. It’s important that your sales team can recognize this and are focused on selling the customer what they want to buy, not what you want to sell them. It’s a balance.”
4. Take advantage of busy days
This one may seem obvious, but taking advantage of those super busy days like Fridays is key to having good sales. Being sure to capture your customers’ data when checking out and giving them incentives to add it in always helps.
“Take advantage of the busy days whenever you can to capture customer data,” Jack said. “We like to utilize our dispensary loyalty program to capture name, email and phone numbers. Incentivize the customers to sign up to your loyalty program with special offers or discounts. It’s important to take advantage of the busy days to capture this data to use for targeted marketing efforts in the future, which will have a positive impact on not only customer retention and loyalty but increased revenues as you’re able to market products based on consumer shopping habits.”
5. Run weekend campaigns
Having different special sales and campaigns Friday through Sunday can always bring more sales in. This can also keep regular customers, as they know the sales are good and that the campaigns run regularly.
“People get paid on Fridays and sometimes are not able to make it to your store after work, and you want to be able to capitalize on the sale through the weekend if you can,” Jack said. “Take advantage of these busy days by providing bag stuffers with a coupon that’s redeemable with another in-store visit on a separate day. The goal is always to build customers for life.”
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