The Dispensary Owner’s Guide to Merchandising Your Online Store
Posted by Toker Grace on Oct 7, 2019 10:13:32 AM
Fancy window displays. Posters and billboards. Commercial advertisement on popular channels at prime time hours. These tried-and-true methods are what business owners use to bring more foot traffic into their stores. These methods are great if you are selling knit sweaters or fancy dresses, but if you own a cannabis dispensary you’re out of luck.
Cannabis Dispensary owners don’t get to utilize these methods because of the nature of regulated industry. So if you own a cannabis dispensary, the only way you are going to build your business and bring in more revenue is to do business through a well-designed online experience.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when merchandising your online store.
Aesthetics Are Important
When it comes to designing your online store, looks are in fact everything. Regardless of your own tastes, it is important to keep the customer in mind at all times.
The overall flow of your online store is always going to be a factor. This just means that your online store is easy to navigate, without jumping all over the place.
Product photos are also extremely important. A customer browsing through your online store won’t have the ability to touch, smell, taste, or hold the products they are interested in. Ultimately, it comes down to the images that are provided. Flashier, higher quality photos are going to be more effective than stock images that blend into the background.
Quality User Experience
User experience relies on the quality of user interaction on your online store, as well as the perception of your products as listed. There are a number of factors that influence user experience. The best way to summarize the main aspect of user experience is to reduce as many obstacles as possible from the sales cycle.
This is why startups and enterprise-level businesses alike all follow well-worn UX design paths and reinforce conventions. Ensure that your online store has all the necessary buttons, widgets, and information that can be found on any successful online store, in any industry.
Navigation menus should be at the top of the page, contact information included out in the open, logo in the top left corner. These are all things that customers have come to expect when shopping online, and these features should be fully compatible with mobile devices, too.
Product Offerings
Another aspect of the user experience revolves around the overall presentation of your product. This concept combines multiple aspects of online marketing. For example: aesthetics through the use of quality pictures, or user experience when searching and comparing different products.
Successful product offering can be used to build buyer trust. This not only enhances the user experience, but it also will increase sales as people come to trust your brand and the quality of the product you offer at your dispensary.
One of the best ways to build this trust is with product reviews. This kind of user-generated content will save customers’ time by quickly giving them the reassuring second opinions that you would be able to get if they were physically in your dispensary.
Educate Your Customers
A fundamental part of building a successful online store is customer education. Although this goes hand-in-hand with customer experience, it isn’t exactly the same as marketing. Customer education is the process of equipping your customers with the knowledge needed to make the most out of their purchase.
Educating your customers not only builds a reputation for your brand, but it increases customer loyalty and overall satisfaction with your product.
Providing all the information needed to make an informed purchase curates happy customers. This way, a customer that is looking for something to help his nostalgia won’t accidentally purchase a strain that will keep him awake and in his head instead.
Through a combination of these key factors, you can create an online store that brings in more revenue and helps grow your dispensary brand.