One of the most fascinating aspects of cannabis is how strains or products can affect individuals in different ways. That’s why experimentation can be so helpful in discovering what works best for each person. Boxed bundles curated by cannabis professionals are an excellent way for retailers to educate their customers and increase dispensary revenue. Of course, when a customer settles into the products or brands they love, a curated collection of their favorites is the way to their heart and wallet. Any curated collection saves money for the customer and increases the sale amount for dispensaries. Save time, make more money, and stand out to your customers this Father’s Day by creating a gift box! Whether you call it a bundle or a gift box of joy, everybody wins!
We’ve posted previous articles about bundling here, and you can access the 30-minute product demo and setup video here. For this article, we spoke with Mark Simonian, COO of Haven dispensaries, to get a retailer’s point of view about how BLAZE helps simplify the process for selling retail bundles. Haven began with one dispensary in 2015 and has since expanded to four dispensaries in Los Angeles County.
BLAZE: Tell us about when you began working with BLAZE POS.
Mark Simonian: We first got involved with BLAZE in October of 2018 and we’ve been working with them ever since. We’ve had an excellent experience. We worked with other POS companies prior to BLAZE and they all had some level of data obfuscation where they really didn’t want to give you the data or you really had to ask for it. BLAZE is always trying to improve their platform, so we can then improve the customer experience and utilize the data through the point of sale to make smarter business decisions. This is certainly true with BLAZE’s open API and their willingness to work with so many third-party companies, whether that’s OnFleet, Headset, or anyone else.
One of the main reasons that we went with BLAZE is because they already had the reporting that we wanted that the other companies did not provide. BLAZE was so open to creating new reports and actually doing it. With the other companies, they’d promise to put it in their development cycle and get to it in six months. And at the end of the day, they never got to it. When you’re operating multiple stores and have a million things going on, it’s really important to be able to look back on that data and see if we made the right choice, and, are we making the right choice moving forward? That’s really what BLAZE gives us the opportunity to do.
BLAZE: What kind of reporting data has been especially helpful?
Mark Simonian: We can look at sales by category reports, like sales by the hour that help you in terms of staffing because it helps you figure out where your labor percentage should be during different parts of the day and different parts of the week. Along with that, the inventory reconciliation reports are just a lot more user-friendly for our staff. The platform is easy to use from the budtender to the executive as it’s so easy to integrate. Having that third-party support and API integrations is so easy and it takes away so much of the burden for whoever’s setting it up.
BLAZE: What BLAZE products is Haven using?
Mark Simonian: We currently use the BLAZE POS platform and use their suggested scanners in some of our stores. We’re really jazzed about BLAZE because if there’s a problem they get right on top of it. If there’s a new feature that they see value in something they push it up to the top of the list, and they’re really willing to listen to their customers to see what they want and what they think would help their other customers.
BLAZE: Why are curated boxes or bundles an effective sales tool?
Mark Simonian: We can set up a curated box in minutes and we did one for our Mother’s Day Box. We even created a gift card that went along with it and we sold out of the boxes very quickly. We also did 420 boxes with some different variants such as edibles or flower or other inhalables. We’re doing a Father’s Day box and we plan to keep doing this because it really gives the patients and customers an opportunity to try out some new products and new brands. It’s constantly adapting and changing.
BLAZE: By putting a curated box together, is there a price break for the customers?
Mark Simonian: Absolutely. We work with the brands to make sure that they’re willing to offer us a discount so we can offer the customer a bigger discount.
BLAZE: How do you go about putting a box together that is Metrc® compliant?
Mark Simonian: First, we start with products that are all from the same Metrc batch. You sometimes have seven, or eight products in one of these boxes, and being able to just scan one entire box versus fumbling around scanning seven or eight items makes the transaction time significantly easier all around. It’s easier from the budtender’s perspective and it’s also simple from the customer’s perspective.
BLAZE: Is delivery something that you’re expanding?
Mark Simonian: Yes, we’re currently doing delivery and we just started it up. We were planning on doing delivery, but with the COVID-19 pandemic, it jumpstarted us into providing delivery. Luckily, BLAZE has excellent integration with Onfleet and it improved our delivery service.
BLAZE: Thank you so much for taking the time to give us your perspective, Mark.
Mark Simonian: Thank you, it’s been my pleasure.
Curated boxes work well for the dispensary, patients, and customers. While patient discovery and experimentation are certainly part of the process, curated cannabis boxes can evolve into a monthly subscription service saving everyone time and money. Again, everybody wins and they provide another sales channel for dispensaries and delivery services. Taking it a step further, retail boxes provide additional, year-round promotional opportunities because they can easily incorporate different themes in addition to holiday events.
Let us help you increase revenue with bundling for your customers.
To start, you can learn more about:
- Creating a Bundle Product Profile – Support Article
- Adding Inventory to a Bundle Product – Support Article
