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The Dispensary Menu Wars: Which is Best for You?

Choosing the right e-commerce menu solution is one of the most consequential tech decisions a dispensary makes β€” affecting everything from the customer browsing experience to your ability to track marketing ROI. This webinar cuts through the options to help dispensary operators and GMs identify which menu platform is the best fit for their specific situation.The session covers the key differences between leading dispensary e-commerce solutions, how to evaluate them against your business needs, and what to watch out for when making the switch. Dispensary owners, GMs, and marketing teams responsible for their e-commerce presence will find this a clear and practical guide to a decision that directly impacts both customer experience and revenue.

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Key Insights

  • Customer lifetime value is calculated from three variables: average purchase value, average purchase frequency, and average customer lifespan - and improving any one of these levers increases lifetime value across the entire customer base.
  • The most profitable dispensary marketing strategy is not acquiring the most new customers - it is retaining and growing the value of existing customers who already know and trust you, because their acquisition cost is zero.
  • Lifetime value analysis typically reveals that a small percentage of customers generate a disproportionately large share of revenue - identifying and treating these high-value customers differently is one of the highest-ROI moves a dispensary can make.
  • Churn - the rate at which customers stop visiting your dispensary - is the primary destroyer of lifetime value, making win-back campaigns for lapsed customers and proactive retention programs essential lifetime value management tools.
  • Loyalty program data is the primary source of lifetime value intelligence for cannabis dispensaries, making loyalty program participation rate a leading indicator of future lifetime value performance across the customer base.

Expert Answers

[{What is customer lifetime value for cannabis dispensaries?}

Customer lifetime value for cannabis dispensaries is the total revenue a dispensary expects to generate from a customer over the entire duration of their relationship with the business. It is calculated by multiplying average purchase value by purchase frequency by average customer lifespan. For example, a customer who spends $80 per visit, visits twice per month, and remains a customer for two years has a lifetime value of $3,840. Understanding lifetime value allows dispensaries to make smarter decisions about how much to invest in acquiring each new customer and how much to invest in retaining existing ones.

{How do cannabis dispensaries increase customer lifetime value?}

Cannabis dispensaries increase customer lifetime value by improving three variables: average purchase value (through product recommendations, bundling, and upselling), purchase frequency (through loyalty programs, SMS reminders, and consistent engagement), and customer lifespan (through excellent service, retention marketing for lapsed customers, and building the brand loyalty that makes customers choose you habitually). Improving all three simultaneously - even modestly - can dramatically increase lifetime value across the entire customer base.

{How do cannabis dispensaries identify their most valuable customers?}

Dispensaries identify their most valuable customers through their POS and loyalty data, using metrics like total spend over a time period, visit frequency, recency of last visit, and product category breadth. Customers who visit frequently, spend more per visit, have been customers for a longer time, and purchase across multiple product categories are typically the highest-lifetime-value segment. Identifying these customers allows dispensaries to treat them differently - with VIP recognition, early access to new products, exclusive promotions, and personalized service that reinforces their loyalty.]

Webinar Highlights

00:00 - Why Customer Lifetime Value Is the Metric Cannabis Dispensaries Should Be Building Around

The session opens by explaining what customer lifetime value is, how to calculate it, and why it reveals a fundamentally different picture of dispensary business performance than transaction-focused metrics alone.

14:00 - Calculating Customer Lifetime Value for Your Dispensary

This section covers the data sources, formulas, and segmentation approaches that allow cannabis dispensaries to calculate lifetime value from their POS and loyalty data.

26:00 - Growing Lifetime Value: Purchase Frequency, Average Order Value, and Retention

The webinar covers the specific marketing and operational tactics that increase each of the three lifetime value levers: purchase frequency, average purchase value, and customer lifespan.

38:00 - Using Lifetime Value to Improve Marketing Budget Allocation

The session closes with how to use lifetime value data to make smarter decisions about customer acquisition costs, retention investment, and which customer segments deserve the most marketing attention.

Frequently Asked Questions

[ {How do you calculate customer lifetime value for a cannabis dispensary?}

The basic formula for customer lifetime value is: average purchase value multiplied by average purchase frequency per year multiplied by average customer lifespan in years. For example, if your average customer spends $75 per visit, visits 2.5 times per month (30 times per year), and remains an active customer for 1.5 years, their lifetime value is $75 x 30 x 1.5 = $3,375. You can pull the data needed for this calculation from your POS system. Segmenting this calculation by customer type (new vs. loyal, product category preference, acquisition channel) reveals which segments have the highest lifetime value and deserve the most retention investment.

{What is a good customer retention rate for a cannabis dispensary?}

A healthy customer retention rate for cannabis dispensaries varies by market maturity, but retaining 40 to 60 percent of first-time customers through a second visit is a reasonable benchmark. The key metric to track is what percentage of customers who visit once return within 90 days. Improving this first-visit-to-repeat-visit conversion rate has a compounding effect on lifetime value across the entire customer base, because every customer who returns a second time is significantly more likely to become a long-term regular than one who visited once and left.

{What is churn rate for cannabis dispensaries and how do you reduce it?}

Churn rate for cannabis dispensaries is the percentage of active customers who stop visiting within a given time period - typically measured as the share of customers who have not visited in 60 or 90 days. To reduce churn, dispensaries use proactive win-back campaigns targeting customers showing early signs of disengagement (first visit with no return within 30 days), lapsed customer reactivation campaigns with compelling offers, loyalty program engagement that gives customers ongoing reasons to return, and service quality improvements that address the root causes of customer departure.

{How does a loyalty program affect customer lifetime value?}

A well-run loyalty program directly increases customer lifetime value by improving purchase frequency (customers visit more often to earn and redeem rewards), increasing average order value (customers add items to reach point thresholds), and extending customer lifespan (loyalty membership creates switching costs and emotional attachment that makes customers more likely to return). Studies across retail categories consistently show that loyalty program members have two to three times higher lifetime value than non-members. The key is building a loyalty program that customers actually engage with - high enrollment with low active participation delivers far less lifetime value benefit.

{What is the RFM model and how does it apply to cannabis dispensary marketing?}

RFM stands for Recency, Frequency, and Monetary value - three variables that can be calculated from your POS data to segment customers by their value and engagement level. Recency measures how recently a customer last visited, frequency measures how often they visit, and monetary value measures how much they spend. By scoring customers on all three dimensions, dispensaries can identify their champions (high on all three), at-risk customers (formerly high frequency and value but not recent), and dormant customers (low on all three). Each segment requires a different marketing approach, making RFM analysis one of the most practical frameworks for cannabis customer marketing. ]

Webinar Full Transcript

[ {Full Transcript}

good morning or good afternoon if you're joining us from the east coast we'll be getting underway here momentarily allow a couple more seconds for our attendees to join we'll be right back with you good morning everyone or good afternoon once again if you're joining us from the east coast we'll be getting underway here with our webinar for today thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to join us we're really excited about today's webinar where we'll be covering the dispensary menu wars which one is the best for you is really what's all about so we're going to be discussing how to pinpoint the best e-commerce solution for your dispensary really really exciting topics here as we've explored so many menus through the last year especially during covet time which has prompted a lot of customers to go online for their shopping so let's get underway for our agenda in today's webinar we're going to be covering the value of an e-commerce platform and what it can actually mean for your dispensary the questions you should be asking to unlock the right dispensary menu for you and what and what revenue attribution uh and why is it so important when choosing the right menu my name once again is eduardo silva i'll be your host for today's webinar i have approximately 19 years in sales and marketing experience and i'm very very excited to be part of this industry and excited to be your host here today as well so thank you a little bit about foot traffic we've been in business for over five years now focusing solely in driving traffic to brick and mortar dispensaries or online menus by also approaching every single one of our clients with the most amount of data possible relating to their online menu conversions so this is very near and dear to us and thank you so much for giving us an opportunity to really host this webinar once again so in preparing ourselves for our webinar today i always ask to take those beautiful cell phones that we love so much in digital marketing and put them face down for just these next 25 minutes or so we're going to be covering a lot of information so it would just help you you know pay closer attention to some of those areas and perhaps take away some of the nuggets that will be really impactful for you also take a moment to familiarize yourself with the zoom interface there is a q a function either at the bottom or on the top of your screen and if you do have any questions we have panelists live here that can answer those questions in real time we will hold a q a um at the end of the webinar as well so be sure to stick around and then uh we always like to give a party message to our attendees and so we'll be sharing some some special offers for those who have joined us today so let's get started kovid has made online ordering even more crucial for all dispensaries across north america and as customers try to limit their time in brick and mortar stores it's essential that dispensaries have easy to use online menus so that those customers can find all of the information they need about products and the place how to place those orders online and according to happy cabbage analytics the average order value for online dispensaries transaction increased to 70 in 2020 from 54. in 2019 that's a 30 increase this bump was likely due to the coronavirus but as people get accustomed to the convenience of watering online it will likely remain one of the most profitable avenues for your dispensary and when you choose the right dispensary menu online ordering can be made easy for both you as well as your customer so we live in an online world and it's crucial that your dispensary make the most of this and offer your customers the functionality they want and have come now to expect if you don't have an online menu yet or if you aren't happy with the menu that you have then you need to find one that is going to help you reach all of your digital goals your online menu is going to generate much of your sales over the coming here and if it is set up correctly it can actually help you increase your overall sales by making it easier for customers to order from you and also suggesting additional items for them to purchase so how do you know which menu is the right one for you well that's exactly what we're going to be talking about and addressing these questions as we move forward with the webinar so we're going to dive into some of these options currently available for our market there's a lot of pressure to pick a menu quickly so that you can get it up and running fast however it's vital that you do your research so that you find a solution that's the that's going to be the best one for you as well as your overall dispensary goals and when talking to a representative from a menu company you want to ask them about the interface right where the menu lives and what it can actually integrate with what analytics capabilities he has how you're notified of orders how your products are populated and consumer payment options and of course there's the cost you will also want to pay attention to what type of support is offered for you if you face a problem you want to be sure that it will be resolved very quickly because after all this will impact your bottom line one aspect of choosing a menu that often gets overlooked is whether you can set up revenue attribution however being able to access your data and to analyze it to determine everything from which of your products are your top sellers to your high performing advertising campaigns it's crucial for maximizing your sales so how can you learn whether the platform you're considering meet your needs one way you can do all of this is to go through a demo for each one of the menus you're considering this can take a lot of time though and especially if you're looking at three to four different menu options rather than committing those hours to sitting through demos and sales pitches stay tuned so we will do a quick run through of some of the most popular menu options currently available and what sets them apart we're going to be running through these in alphabetical order so first up is a data owl data out offers an attractive menu for pickup or delivery that features an enhanced mobile experience they offer a highly customizable platform that is based off of wordpress and woocommerce so you can create a menu that is more seamlessly integrated with the look and feel of your website this makes it really user friendly that owl menu lives on your website which means you control your data and you can set up revenue attribution by installing google analytics and enabling ecommerce tracking in addition to its menu platform data owl also has a loyalty and messaging platform so that you can create a more robust customer friendly experience data out starts at 199 a month and there are discounts for msos and they have experience with multi-location operations and serve some of the biggest names in the industry let's talk dutchy there's a reason that duchy is one of the most popular e-commerce platforms on the market today the duchy team has made their menu very easy to use plus they've integrated with plenty of marketing solutions and tools like google tag manager google analytics and hubspot as well as a variety of popular pos solutions dutchie also has plug and play ecommerce tracking enabled so it's easy to get revenue attribution set up and to identify your product performance their analytics are some of the best in the industry and they have a high conversion rate with many of the customers who visit the menu placing an order dutchie can also be used for medical or adult use dispensaries as well as delivery services they allow sub domain which is great for keeping people on your website and they recently launched dutchy plus which allows for full customization and provides more advanced analytics dutch's customer service is great they have a knowledgeable responsive team and are always ready to help the dispensaries when using their platform now let's cover some limitations dutchy only allows one image per product so you can't have multiple images of a particular edible and what it looks like or zoom in on some of the trichomes on your popular flower stream they also don't have product reviews on their site or any educational resources people looking to learn more about particular strains or products may need to look elsewhere to get that information some dispensaries have installed a live chat app to help combat this so they can talk directly to the consumer shopping online on their menu price wise dutcher runs on a subscription model they're an affordable solution starting at 250 a month per location next up jane jane is user friendly and it's a great option features and reviews and a large catalog of product photos and robust descriptions jane has good upsell tech enabled which shows users relatable products that they may be interested in as well they also allow users to pay online with campaign and if you use trees as your pos jane has one of the best trees integrations right now currently jaina only allows embedded menus all of the data belongs to you and jane can help you see your sales and web traffic and kpis but if you want to enable google analytics revenue attribution you have to do custom coding this is actually something we can actually help you if you're interested in discovering which of your advertisement campaigns is helping you actually generate revenue jane provides market insights so you can see what products that you aren't carrying are top sellers and analyze industry prices they can do this because they're also a marketplace jane cost three hundred dollars a month on chu leafly leafly is another popular marketplace options it's easy to use and he offers some of the best product descriptions effects and reviews they've gathered plenty of information from their users and added some great graphics to their info so it presents it as an easy to digest format they also have in most educational resources of any menu platform leafly does not allow subdomain only embedded menus this makes it hard to establish seo from your menu leafly will get the views and not you plus they own the data you may only be able to see some of your data and you won't be able to actually retarget customers or establish revenue attribution because it is a marketplace leaflet makes it easy for customers to shop around so they may leave your menu some new dispensaries ought to use leafly to gain visibility in a crowded market while establishing a separate menu on their website this can work however because it is a marketplace conversion rates on their menu are pretty low leafly pricing varies depending on placement in their search so you will need to speak to someone on their staff to get more specific pricing moving right along here let's do a quick run through on ola ola is a highly customizable menu platform that is built out on wordpress it's not part of a marketplace so you don't have to worry about people leaving your menu to find a product for less somewhere else they offer a variety of analytics and your data is all yours you can see how people are interacting with your menu and what they're ordering they also allow for google tag manager integration so you can actually set up revenue attribution ola has structured their menu and features to help you get more orders they also offer chat capabilities which is a great feature to support online shoppers ola has on-fleet integration so you can easily offer delivery in addition to their customizations they also integrate with many popular pos systems and offer great customer service to help you olo has created their platform with msos in mind and they want to ensure that their users have the ultimate control over their menu and their customer online data behavior rather than offering a per store fee as many platforms do ola allows for as many locations as you want starting at 600 a month if you're using indica online podify may be a good option for you currently podify only works with the indica online pos but it does so seamlessly automatically importing your pricing and stock information into your online store podify is installed via subdomain and it does allow for google analytics revenue attribution it's a newer online platform that has a good conversion rate so far however because it is newer it doesn't have as large of a database of product descriptions as well as photos you and your team may need to create some of those if you want them podify is included with indica online making it a great package deal you can get started with these two platforms for 299 a month or 249 a month when paying annually if you're located in canada you're probably a very lucky candidate here because you can actually tap into shopify you have the option of using this platform as your entire ecommerce sales right not only shopify reputable company but they have great design and are easy to use you will need to upload your own product images and descriptions however shopify does provide analytics so you can run revenue attribution and they allow for online payments with shopify you can control your own data and you don't have to worry about competing with other dispensaries on the same platform an advanced shopify account starts at 299 per location though there are several add-ons you can tack onto your account and credit card fees that you will also need to consider trees is a robust pos and e-commerce platform that works together seamlessly and allows retailers to learn more about their consumers trees also accepts payments so you can actually accept debit cards for online purchases and delivery their goal is to provide a more seamless shopping experience for consumers by offering an entire tax stack of dispensaries for dispensaries they believe that their eco ecosystem is increase order sizes and make it easier for consumers to actually check out trees integrate with dutchy jane and leafly as well as other loyalty platforms though and it also works fine on its own it does rely on cannabis brands to upload their own product descriptions and photos and they also provide sales information to those brands to help them better market their products trees provides sales and customer insights to retailers but unfortunately right now revenue attribution is not available so you won't be able to track your marketing efforts or origination of your online shoppers trees offers two packages the pro and the enterprise the ladder provides additional support and basic messaging capabilities you can reach out to them directly for pricing timber is a dispensary menu platform with a variety of exciting features if you want to stand out this menu may be the one for you it is ideal for msos who want to control the look and feel of their online presence timber lives on your website which is great for both seo and data collection this makes installing google analytics and establishing revenue attribution very easy it's not part of a marketplace so you own all of your info and you don't have to worry about customers hopping over to another dispensary menu timber also allows you to upsell by linking to additional products or using their smart recommendation feature and because everything is hosted on your website you can also feature your products anywhere on your website in addition they offer product reviews which is in all providing social proof of that product's viability timber can manage dynamic inventories for msos as well so if you offer different levels of delivery service for example you can host different menus for them timber does have their own marketing integrations which includes live chat so your blood tenders can actually help your customers as they shop around they do start at 750 dollars per month per location web join is a direct-to-consumer platform that focuses only on delivery sales they are unique because they allow brands and marketplaces to sell directly to consumers they also allow brand specific campaigns so that people can see every dispensary that carries a particular product and then order from them in terms of ux web join automates menus based on their user location let's say you were a brand of edibles in norcal you can help sell your product to consumers via web joint which will automatically generate menus featuring your products based on where the consumer is located web joins revenue attribution should be live soon plus it runs on assault domain this will help you track the effectiveness of your marketing efforts plus they have a great customer service team again they are delivery only so if you're a retail location considering web joint you will need an alternative menu for in-store or curbside pickup and finally the name that everybody recognizes in this industry we maps we maps is a popular marketplace that also hosts dispensary menus we maps allows for the use of sub-domains they have an extensive product listing with photographs and they also allow for product reviews so your customers can share their experiences we maps has google analytics integration so you can see which items customers are looking at and where they're coming from unfortunately while you can use google analytics with weed maps you don't own any of the customer data weed maps does this makes it harder to re-target those same customers with maps requires consumers to log in to their website and their ux poses some limitations with maps does not integrate seamlessly with all pos systems which is problematic when you're selling in-store and online at the same time your inventory levels may not be correct on your weed maps menu also because it's a marketplace it's very simple for customers to jump ship and find a product they want and another one of your competitors this impacts their conversion rate which is fairly level now some dispensaries opt to list on weed maps to get found when they're first starting out rather than using it as their primary menu they use it as a supplemental menu almost more as a marketing tool this can be very helpful if you're opening up a shop in a crowded market the cost of weed maps depends on the options you want and where your dispensary is based if you want to show up higher on weed maps results they actually offer you that option by paying them some more a standard listing starts at 495 dollars and if you want to show up higher in the results you will need to pay a premium listing their listings are auction style with is the highest bidder score in the top spot premium members also receive an analytics dashboard showing clicks and impressions so i know this is a lot of information plus there's plenty of other menu options available and more popping up all the time and if you're debating using a menu platform that we didn't cover today be sure to consider the factors that i mentioned in the beginning of this presentation you really want something that is going to check off as many of the boxes for you so you don't have to confidently so you can actually confidently implement it and then use the analytics to improve your conversion rate and get more sales although you can switch manuals down the line if you do need to we've actually helped clients do this several times in the past and continue to do so it's always better to pick up with the right menu from the get-go as you look into your menu options focus on the things that matter to you if you want people to use your menu check for user friendly interface if you want to be able to measure the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns as you seek out new customers you will want to be able to set up revenue attribution and monitor your analytics you will need to own your customer data to achieve this by focusing on your goals and objectives you can whittle down the list of available platforms and discover which made it working best for you if you're still having trouble deciding we can actually help you get set up on a platform that will help you check off as many of those items as possible we've helped hundreds of dispensary choose and set up their online menu so that they can work well with their other tech platforms and capture as much useful data as possible to ensure their growth we can also get your seo set up for many menus out there and live on your website so we're going to turn back to our audience today for some questions once again there is a q a option if you're having trouble finding the q a option please just chime on in with your questions directly on the chat window we'll get you either way here all right first question coming through here what is the most important menu feature i should look for if i want to accelerate sales if this question did not come up i would feel like uh you know we didn't do our job in communicating the value of an online menu so thank you for this question in our experience as a digital marketing uh company revenue attribution is the most important long-term future of features excuse me to focus on and if you can implement this you will show you the revenue sources and provide you all of the important information you're going to be looking for to help you capture new audience so great question so revenue attribution is really the ability right to track where are your sales coming from it's as simple as that right so you're not flying blind great question any other questions once again feel free to use the q a function or the chat function here and we can address these questions live another great question here uh what is a conversion rate that you should be looking for on a menu um now this this is a good question it's not an easy one so thank you for not giving me the softball here so conversion rates vary from market to market right depending on where you were located how saturated your market is um your audience profile right in those regions it changes dramatically however since we do run campaigns and work with just about every menu out there for our clients in driving new business we've seen some some patterns across north america conversion rates for a brand new uh brand if you will entering a market that is saturated we've seen anywhere from three percent but the average we've seen is somewhere around that eight percent threshold which is a great conversion rate so you want to shoot for that eight percent conversion rate on your menu meaning the individuals who are lending on your website how many of them are converting right and that's exactly what we do for our clients so we drive conversion rate we helps pin uh pinpoint challenges perhaps in your marketing strategy redesign those marketing strategies based on consumer behavior in your market and ensure that your customers that we are getting to your website are actually leaving happy customers and buying products from you great questions well thank you everybody for taking the time to join us today we really appreciate it and we also appreciate you sticking around so do let us know if you have any other questions we did provide here a link to set up a call please do feel free to schedule a call with us we would certainly appreciate having a one-on-one conversation with you and addressing any other questions have a wonderful rest of your day thank you so much ]

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The Dispensary Menu Wars: Which is Best for You?

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